
Class. 
Book 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



REMINISCENCES 



OF 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



BY 



DISTINGUISHED MEN OF HIS TIME 



COLLECTED AND EDITED BY 

ALLEN THORNDIKE RICE 

M 

EDITOR OF THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW 




NEW YORK 

NORTH AMERICAN PUBLISHING COMPANY 

30 Lafayette Place 

1886 






Copyright, 1SS5, 
By ALLEN THORNDIKE RICE. 



Press of J. J. Little & Co., 
Nos. 10 to 20 Aster Place, New York. 



/ 






REMINISCENCES 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



CONTENTS. 



I. 
GENERAL ULYSSES S. GRANT. 

PAGES 

Too much Tail— The Dutch Gap Canal— I will make a 

Fizzle, anyhow i~4 

IL 
HON. ELIHU B. WASHBURNE, 

EX-MINISTER TO FRANCE. 

Early Life of Abraham Lincoln— In the Black Hawk 
War (1837) — His First Political Success — Early 
Contemporaries — Popularity as a Story- Teller — 
Brilliancy as a Stump-Speaker — A Strong Partisan 
of Clay — Personal Appearance of Old Abe — At the 
Presidential Inauguration Ball — On the Missouri 
Compromise (1854)— Lincoln Defeated for the Sen- 
ate (1858)— President of the United States (1861)— 
Gloomy Misgivings on the Situation — Conspiracy 
to Assassinate the President-elect — Precautions 
against Assassination — "How are you, Lincoln?" 
Mr. Blaine's Error — Would not Decline a Second 
Term (1863)— The Fall of Richmond—" Mr. Lin- 
coln has been Assassinated " 5~45 



VI CONTENTS. 

III. 
HON. GEORGE W. JULIAN, 

EX-MEMBER OF CONGRESS. 

PAGES 

The Famous Rail-Splitter — The Tremendous Rush for 
Office — Anger against McClellan — An Inveterate 
Story-Teller — Why John C. Fremont was not Ap- 
pointed — Relations with Secretary Stanton — A 
Characteristic Anecdote — Unpopular with People 
and Congress in 1863 — How Music Affected Lin- 
coln — His Great Respect for Horace Greeley — A 
Man of no Resentments — Opposed to the Proclama- 
tion of Emancipation — Issued the Proclamation Re- 
luctantly — The Demand for the Proclamation Irre- 
sistible — Father Abraham his Proper Title 47-65 

IV. 
HON. R. E. FENTON, 

EX-GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK. 

Dissatisfaction of Thurlow Weed — Not a Successful Im- 
promptu Speaker — Did not know where Sherman 
would come out — " The Governor has a Pretty 
Good Case " — " On to Richmond " — Providence 
and General McClellan — A Grasp on Truth and 
Justice 67-75 



HON. J. P. USHER, 

EX-SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR. 

Lincoln believed in Protection — A Distinction and a 
Difference — Douglas Faithful to the Union — De- 
serving Davis — The Tribime Assails Lincoln — The 
Union before Everything — Horace Greeley's Advice 
— Overlooking the Deity — Not to be Bullied by 
Congress— Cabinet Differences — He Never did De- 
spair of the Union — His Faith in Grant 77-100 



CONTENTS. VI 1 

VI. 
HON. GEORGE S. BOUTWELL, 

EX-SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY. 

PAGES 

Lincoln, next to Washington, the Greatest American— 
An' Early Career of Vicissitudes— He owed Little 
of his Success to Education— Interpreting the Will 
of the People by Intuition— Letter to Mrs. Bixby, of 
Boston— Ideas on Race Amalgamation— Campaign 

• against Douglas— Logical Argument against Slavery 
—Not an Agitator— Hostility to Slavery in 1831— 
Democrats or Abolitionists— Effect of Public Opin- 
ion—Emancipation, the Last Card— The Proclama- 
tion to Follow a Victory— The Unyielding Secretary 
Stanton — Why Meade was Appointed to Succeed 
Hooker— Capital the Offspring of Labor— A Com-' 
petitor for Fame with the Greatest Orators— The 
Oration at Gettysburg — Lincoln a Staunch Partisan 

None but Partisans should Attain Places — A 

Great Historical Character 101-138 

VII. 
GENERAL BENJAMIN F. BUTLER, 

EX-GOVERNOR OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

First Recollections of Lincoln— Organizing the War 
Democrats—" That's Right ; God be with you "— 
Strong Measures to Prevent Desertions — Giving the 
President a Guard — Playing Billiards with a War 
Prisoner — Intending to Hang Jeff. Davis — The Com- 
mander-in-Chief must be Brave — " I Think I can 
beat Butler " — As Merciful as he was Brave — Rec- 
ommending Negro Colonization — Fearing Negro 
Guerrillas— How the Panama-Canal Plan was ob- 
structed — Presidential Aspirations of Mr. Chase — 
Declining the Vice-Presidential Nomination — A 
Second Declination— A Matter of History 139-160 



Vlll CONTENTS. 

VIII. 

CHARLES CARLTON COFFIN, 

WAR CORRESPONDENT OF THE " BOSTON JOURNAL." 

PAGES 

The White Handkerchief — Notified of his Nomination — 
"All Quiet on the Potomac" — Hearing of his 
Friend's Death — Before the Denouement — Five 
Forks — " Glory ! Glory ! Glory ! " 161-1S4 

IX. 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS, 

EX-UNITED STATES MARSHAL OF THE DISTRICT OF 
COLUMBIA. 

The Difficulty Regarding Colored Troops — Horace 
Greeley's Criticism on the War — A Presentiment 
of Lincoln's Death — Andrew Johnson — A Peep into 
his Soul — A Wonderful Address — A Sea of Beauty 
and Elegance — The first great American that drew 
no Race Distinctions — A few more Inches to his 
Tail— In the Presence of a big Brother 185-195 

X. 

JUDGE LAWRENCE WELDON, 

U. S. COURT OF CLAIMS. 

" There Goes Old Mr. Lincoln " — He Likes the Atmos- 
phere of a Court-house — Lawyer Lincoln and "Cap- 
tain" McClellan — A Dramatic Scene — "Do you 
see that Gun ? " — A Touch of Sarcasm 197-215 



CONTENTS. IX 

XI. 
BENJAMIN PERLEY POORE, 

WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT OF THE " BOSTON 
JOURNAL." 

PAGES 

Mustered in by Jeff. Davis— That Settled his Hash- 
Lincoln and Webster— The Mislaid Gripsack— 
'' Revenom a nos Moiitons" — Bull Run Russell 217-231 

XII. 
TITIAN J. COFFEY, 

UNITED STATES ASSISTANT ATTORNEY-GENERAL. 

A Skunk Story — Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego — 

A Mast-Fed Lawyer— The Master-Mind 233-246 

XIII. 

REV. HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

A Dangerous Animal — " Is Thy Servant a Dog ? " — 
Every Way for Sunday—" You will Pass Bearer 
through Lines" — "Come Along" — Broken and 
Despondent — Somewhere to Blow Off 247-253 

XIV. 
HON. WILLIAM D. KELLEY, 

MEMBER OF CONGRESS. 

"Pray, Governor, how tall may you be?" — Big Judge 
Davis and Little Judge Davis — A Change of Opin- 
ion — Shakespeare — A Startling Contingency — They 
could not Appreciate Humor — Goldwin Smith's Im- 
pressions 255-291 



X CONTENTS. 

XV. 
HON. CASSIUS M. CLAY, 

EX-MINISTER TO RUSSIA. 

The Rectitude of Lincoln — Wit Wins the Case — An Ex- 
cellent Listener — Cassius M. Clay Offered the War 
Secretaryship — Hungry Harpies — Mercenary Camp 
Followers — A Great Relief — Cassius M. Clay Saves 
Washington — Talk about Emancipation — For Rea- 
sons of State only — Unanswerable Logic— " Bless 
the Lord " 293-306 

XVI. 
COL. ROBERT G. INGERSOLL. 

Lincoln not a Type — A Unique Man without Ancestor 
or Successor — A Profound Observer of Human Nat- 
ure — Polishing Pebbles and Dimming Diamonds — 
His Candor deceived the Deceitful — Greatest Stat- 
ues need least Drapery — Lincoln the Liberator. . . . 307-314 

XVH. 
A. H. MARKLAND, 

EX-THIRD- ASSIST ANT POSTMASTER-GENERAL. 

Bombardment of Fort Sumter — Kentucky the Key to 
the Situation — Beginning of Friendship for Grant — 
Grant's Paducah Proclamation — God Bless Sher- 
man and his Army — Lincoln's Inflexible Integrity. . 315-329 

XVIII. 
HON. SCHUYLER COLFAX, 

EX-VICE-PRKSIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Mental Idiosyncrasies — That Awfully Wicked City of 
Chicago — How he Hid his Sad Heart — A Cowardly 



CONTENTS. XI 

PAGES 

Pair of Legs — " Older than Methuselah " — One War 
at a Time — " Lyons, Go Thou and do Likewise " — 
Taking Down a Marquis — A Great Orator 331-349 

XIX. 
HON. DANIEL W. VOORHEES, 

UNITED STATES SENATOR FOR INDIANA. 

" No Hanging in this Case " — The President's Clemency 351-362 

XX. 

HON. CHARLES A. DANA, 

EDITOR " NEW YORK SUN." 

First Sight of Lincoln — How he Received Political 
Friends — No Lack of Dignity in the Man — An In- 
flexible Public Servant — Sincerity toward his Cabi- 
net — Down in the Wilderness — Profound Sagacity 
of the President — The Jacob Thompson Episode - - 363-376 

XXI. 
HON. JOHN A. KASSON, 

EX-MINISTER TO AUSTRIA. 

First Blood — Conscientious in Appointing — " I haven't 
much Influence with this Administration " — Lincoln 
Afraid of Stanton — Lettrcs de Cachet — The Last 
Act 37 7-385 

XXII. 

GENERAL JAMES B. FRY. 

A Man without Bad Habits — The Gnawing for a Second 
\ Term — Something in a Name — Stanton Overmatched 

/ 



XI 1 CONTENTS. 



—Story of a Big Log— My God ! Is that All ?— 

Well Done, Good and Faithful Servants 387-404 



XXIII. 

HON. HUGH Mcculloch, 

EX-SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY. 

Lincoln versus Douglas — The Time for Rebellion had 
Come — A Man of Strong Religious Convictions — 
Lincoln and Everett — Sublime Faith in Republican 
Institutions , 405-425 

XXIV. 
HON. CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW, 

PRESIDENT NEW YORK CENTRAL RAILROAD. 

Virtue of Broad Illustration — Feeling of Intense Respon- 
sibility — " The Soldiers' Vote " — A Complete Meta- 
morphosis — " Ganson, how Clean you Shave " — Lin- 
coln Snubs the New York Millionaires — Stopping 
the Machinery of a Reception to Listen to a Story — 
" To all Whom it may Concern " — Horace Greeley's 
Attacks — A Supremely Great Man 427-438 

XXV. 
DAVID R. LOCKE. 

(petroleum v. nasby.) 

A Great and Good Man — Giving his Feet a Chance to 
Breathe — A Sad-faced Man — Lincoln's Humor — 
Douglas a Demagogue — Glimmering of the Future 
— Offers Nasby a Place — A Hater of Bloodshed 
— The Face of Death 439~453 



CONTENTS. Xlll 

XXVI. 
LEONARD SWETT. 
(Lincoln's story of his own life.) 

PAGES 

Lincoln in 1849 — David Davis's Court — What Lincoln 
Remembered of his Youth — Six Weeks of Schooling 
— What he Read — From Indiana to Illinois — Rail- 
splitting — Flat-boating — Nearly Killed by a Negro 
— " The Greatest Obstacle of my Life " — One of 
the " Long Nine " — Lincoln's Youth was Happy. . . 455-468 

XXVII. 
WALT WHITMAN. 

Lincoln on Horseback — A Characteristic Likeness — 
How to Estimate Lincoln's Character — Lincoln 
Compared with Washington — With Shakespeare .... 469-475 

XXVIIL 
DONN PIATT. 

A Huge Skeleton in Clothes — President Lincoln a Scep- 
tic — " Why Should the Spirit of Mortal be Proud ? " 
— Was Lincoln Forgiving? — "Squealing like Pigs" 
— The Owls in Epaulets — Lincoln no Abolitionist. . 477-500 

XXIX. 

E. W. ANDREWS. 

A Touching Anecdote — Hon. Secretary Stanton — The 
Kindness of a Brother — A Sure Cure for Boils — 
" Floweth for the President " — Tribute to Horatio 
Seymour — A Just Decision 501-518 



XIV CONTENTS. 

XXX. 

JAMES C. WELLING. 

"The Great Divide "—Military Action and Slavery- 
Hesitating to Issue the Proclamation— The Famous 
Greeley Letter— The Greeley Faction— A Prudent 
Waiting upon Providence— Threatening Divisions— 
A Strict Military Necessity— The Bitter Mr. Chase 
—Dark and Doubtful Days— We have the New 
Reckonings— The Legal Aspect of Emancipation- 
Peace Negotiations— A Cure for all Evils— Emanci- 
pation a Coup d'etat 5 19-557 

XXXI. 

JOHN CONNESS. 

Chase a Candidate— Geographical Considerations — Lin- 
coln in an Angry Mood— Appoints Chase Chief 
Justice — Fessenden's Lack of Magnanimity 559-571 

XXXIL 
JOHN B. ALLEY, 

/•'- h :.^.~AK-7, uJL senator from MASSACHUSETTS. 

An Estimate of Lincoln — How Douglas Received the 
Announcement of Lincoln's Nomination — Why Lin- 
coln did not Appoint a Massachusetts Man to Office 
—Lincoln and Chase— The Slave Dealer— Pardon- 
ing a Soldier — Lincoln's Religion 573-591 

XXXIII. 
THOMAS HICKS. 

NATIONAL ACADEMICIAN. 

Lincoln's Portrait— Dana and Greeley's Interest— "/'^r- 
so>i Brim<)ihm< says I am a A^/-'-''-^/- " — Meddlers 



CONTENTS. XV 

PAGES 

with Paints — Unrecognized Visitors — How Lincoln 
Heard of his Nomination — Some Fun Out of a Por- 
trait — Forecasting the Future — Lincoln's Birth- 
place 593-607 

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

U. S. Grant — E. B. Washburne — George W. Julian — 
R. E. Fenton — J. P. Usher — George S. Boutvvell — 
Benjamin F. Butler — Charles Carlton Coffin — Fred- 
erick Douglass — Lawrence Weldon — Ben. Perley 
Poore — Titian J. Coffey — Henry Ward Beecher — 
AVilliam D. Kelley — Cassius M. Clay— Robert G. 
IngersoU — A. H. Markland — Schuyler Colfax^ 
Daniel W. Voorhees — Charles A. Dana — John A. 
Kasson — James B. Fry — Hugh McCulloch — Chaun- 
cey M. Depew — David R. Locke — Leonard Swett 
— Walt Whitman — Donn Piatt — E. W. Andrews- 
James C. Welling — John Conness — John B. Alley — 
Thomas Hicks 609-649 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Steel Portrait of Abraham Lincoln Frontispiece 

1 U. S. Grant i 

2 E. B. Washburne 5 

3 R. E. Fenton 67 

4 J. P. Usher 77 

5 Geoi^e S. Boutwell 10 1 

6 Benjamin F. Butler 139 

7 Abraham Lincoln's Residence at Springfield, 111 168 

8 Frederick Douglass 185 

9 Ben. Perley Poore 217 

10 Henry Ward Beecher 247 

1 1 Cassius M. Clay 293 

1 2 Robert G. Ingersoll 307 

13 Schuyler Colfax 331 

14 Charles A. Dana 363 

15 James B. Fry 387 

16 Hugh McCuUoch 405 

17 Chauncey M. Depew 427 

18 David R. Locke 439 

19 Leonard Swett 455 

20 Early Home of Lincoln, in Illinois 459 

2 1 Walt Whitman 469 

22 Characteristic Likeness of Abraham Lincoln 471 

23 Fac-simile of Letter from Abraham Lincoln to Horace 

Greeley 523 

24 Thomas Hicks 593 

25 A. Lincoln, from the Original Painting by Thomas Hicks. 602 

26 Fac-simile of Letter from O. H. Browning to Thomas 

Hicks 606 

27 Account of his Birth-place, in Handwriting of Lincoln. . . 607 



INTRODUCTION. 



IT was mainly with the view of accumulating a mass 
of trustworthy evidence concerning the personal 
traits and private utterances of Abraham Lincoln 
that I conceived the plan and approached the task of 
uniting in one or more volumes the opinions of the 
most distinguished characters, still surviving, of the 
great war which produced them. The result has 
been gratifying beyond expectation, furnishing — I 
think it is not too much to say — a remarkable book 
about a remarkable man. 

Most men who visited Washington during the 
civil war met Abraham Lincoln. Amid the clash of 
armed strife and the din of party struggle, he never 
denied to the humblest citizen a willing ear and a 
cheering word. Although not " all things to all 
men," in the common acceptation of the phrase, there 
was rarely an hour too crowded for him to utter a 
memorable word or to tell an apt story to the passing 
visitor. By degrees and by accretion, these utter- 
ances and stories, or rather these parables, have 
grown in number with the growth of a great reputa- 



XVIU INTRODUCTION. 

tion. Story after story and trait after trait, as vary- 
ing in value as in authenticity, has been added to the 
Lincolniana, until at last the name of the great war 
President has come to be a biographic lodestone, at- 
tracting without distinction or discrimination both the 
true and the false. Talleyrand himself was not made 
sponsor for so many historic sayings as have fallen 
to the heritage of Abraham Lincoln. It may, in- 
deed, be doubted whether his entire presidential term 
would have sufficed to utter the number attributed 
to him. Yet it is certain that he rarely failed to 
seize an opportunity to illustrate the situation by a 
homely parable, which substituted a story for an ar- 
gument and left the argument to the listener's own 
deductive powers. He rarely refused audience to 
any one He rarely declined to face any person or 
any situation, however annoying the interview or 
the occasion. He felt himself capable of confronting 
all the difficulties of his high place, and this faith in 
his own strength sufficed to guide him through some 
of the severest trials that have ever fallen to the 
lot of a public man. His many-sided nature en- 
abled him to excel in most of the tasks that he at- 
tempted, and the triumphant power he showed on 
most occasions was one of the essential characteris- 
tics of his nature. From a local politician and an 
obscure member of Congress, he suddenly arose to 
be one of the world's most influential statesmen. 



INTRODUCTION. xix 

From a volunteer against Indian insurgents, he be- 
came the mover of vast armies, and met with firm- 
ness, patience and skill the most harassing exigencies 
of a great civil war. Beginning as a stump speaker 
and corner-grocery debater, he lived to take his place 
in the front rank of immortal orators. It was this 
power of compassing the most trying situations that 
made the brief and crowded space of four years suf- 
fice for him to accomplish a task that generations 
had been preparing, and which, to use his own words, 
before assuming the presidency, "offered more dif- 
ficulties than had devolved upon Washington." 

But, to struggle was not new to him. His whole 
life had been a series of obscure but heroic strues'les, 
and it may safely be said that no man of Lincoln's 
historical stature ever passed through a more check- 
ered or more varied career. It fills one with aston- 
ishment to follow the vocations that successively fell 
to the lot of this extraordinary man, since, as a boy, 
in 1826, he left the school (to reach which he 
walked nine miles every day), to the sad hour when, 
in 1865, he perished, as President of the United 
States. Beginning as a farm laborer, studying at 
night by the light of the fire, he was the hostler, he 
ground corn, he built fires and he cooked — all for 
thirty-one cents a day. In 1827, he is recorded as an 
athlete of local renown, while, at the same time, he 
was a writer on temperance and a champion of the 



XX INTRODUCTION. 

integrity of the American Union. In 1830, we are 
told that he undertook " to spHt for Mrs. Nancy 
Miller four hundred rails for every yard of brown 
jean, dyed with walnut bark, that would be required 
to make him a pair of trousers." He next turned 
his attention to public speaking — beginning his 
career as orator standing on an empty keg at Deca- 
tur. Next we find him, in turn, a Mississippi boat- 
man, a clerk at the polls, a salesman, a debater in 
frontier debating clubs, a militia captain in the Black 
Hawk War, a private for a month in a volunteer 
spy company, and an unsuccessful candidate for the 
Legislature. In 1832, he seriously thought of be- 
coming a blacksmith, but he changed his views, and 
bought a country store on credit. Ruined by a 
drunken partner, he failed, but, as money came to him, 
he paid his honest debts — discharging the last note in 
1849. We next find him qualifying as a land sur- 
veyor, after six weeks' study. In 1833, he is appointed 
postmaster at New Salem, using his hat as a post- 
office. He was also, as occasion called, a referee and 
umpire, the unquestioned judge in all local disputes, 
waoers and horse races. Havino^ read law, he became 
a lawyer. In 1834, he was a successful candidate for 
the Legislature of Illinois, and, as a member of it, 
protested against slavery. Challenged about this time 
to fight a duel, he became reconciled with his adver- 
sary and married Miss Mary Todd, after constitut- 



IN TROD UC TIQN. XXI 

ing himself her champion. Defeated as candidate 
for Congress, in 1843, he was returned in 1846. 
About this time he patented a novel steamboat. 
In 1854, he sought without success to be appointed 
General Land Commissioner. Subsequently, he is 
seen engaged vigorously in State politics, opposing 
Judge Douglas in a debate that attracted national 
attention, and that gave him the nomination for the 
Presidency of the United States. 

The face of Lincoln told the story of his life — a 
life of sorrow and struggle, of deep-seated sadness, of 
ceaseless endeavor. It would have taken no Lavater 
to interpret the rugged energy stamped on that un- 
comely plebeian face, with its great crag-like brows 
and bones, or to read there the deep melancholy 
that overshadowed every feature of it. 

Even as President of the United States, at a period 
when the nation's peril invested the holder of the 
office with almost despotic power, there seems to 
have been in Lincoln's nature a modesty and lack 
of desire to rule which nothing could lessen or efface. 
Wielding the power of a king, he retained the mod- 
esty of a commoner. 

And, surely, it is not among the least remarkable 
of her achievements, that American Democracy 
should have produced great statesmen and great 
soldiers, when called for by great events, who, as a 
rule, have been free from that dangerous ambition 



Xxii INTRODUCTION. 

which has tainted the fairest names of European 
history. If we have not had our age of Pericles, 
of Augustus or of Leo, we can boast of a history 
that has given us, within the period of a century, 
the patriotism of a Washington, a Lincoln and a 
Grant. 

If we may believe tradition, Lincoln came from a 
stock which proves the hereditary source of his 
chief characteristics. His humor, his melancholy, his 
strange mingling of energy and indolence, his gen- 
erosity, his unconventional character, his frugality, 
his tenderness, his courage, all are traceable to 
his ancestry as well as to the strange society which 
molded the boy and nerved the man to face without 
fear every danger that beset his path. He revealed 
to the old world a new type of man, of the Anglo- 
Saxon race, it is true, but modified by circumstances 
so novel and potent, and even dominating in their 
influence, as to mark a new departure in human 
character. Lincoln was the type and representative 
of the " Western man " — an evolution of family isola- 
tion, of battles with primeval forces and the most 
savage races of men, of the loneliness of untrodden 
forests, of the absence of a potent public opinion, of 
a state of society in which only inherent greatness of 
human character was respected ; in which tradition 
and authority went for naught, and courage and will 
were alone recognized as having rightful domina- 



INTRODUCTION. XXI 11 

tion. The peculiarities of this society were not 
less reflected in its character than in its tastes. 
Thus, in Lincoln, for example, Rabelais and Machia- 
velli, coarse wit and political cunning, were quite 
as conspicuous as that tenderness and self-abnega- 
tion which recall the early history of the Christian 
Church. The Western man, the American of the 
Western prairies and forests, could in no sense be 
termed a colonial Englishman, as a large class of 
cultivated Eastern Americans might not unjustly be 
described. England had no mortgage on the mind or 
character or manners of these children of the West. 
The Western settlers had no respect for English 
traditions or teachings, whether of Church or of 
State. Accustomed all their lives to grapple with 
nature face to face, they thought and they spoke, 
with all the boldness of unrestrained sincerity, on 
every topic of human interest or of sacred memory, 
without the slightest recognition of any right of 
external authority to impose restrictions, or even to 
be heard in protest against their intellectual inde- 
pendence. As their life developed the utmost in- 
dependence of creed and individuality, he whose 
originality was the most fearless and self-contained 
was chief among them. Among such a people, 
blood of their blood and bone of their bone, differ- 
ing from them only in stature, Abraham Lincoln 
arose to rule the American people with a more than 



Xxiv INTRODUCTION. 

kingly power, and received from them a more than 
feudal loyalty. 

Those who follow his life must be impressed 
with the equal serenity of Lincoln's temper, in mo- 
ments of the darkest adversity as in the hours of 
his greatest triumphs. It has been said that it is 
easier to stand adversity than prosperity, but, how- 
ever true this may be of private life, it is hardly 
applicable to times of stress in public affairs. I was 
struck with the remark of a great captain, when, in 
returning some compliment about America, I re- 
ferred to the feats of the armies under his command, 
" I accept your praise of our victories," he rejoined, 
" but what our armies would have been in defeat I 
cannot say." 

Lincoln's character was weighed in both balances ; 
and it was not found wanting. No man could 
have borne more nobly than he the sternest test of 
defeat. At these moments of extreme tension, his 
character alone came to his rescue. 

He was melancholy without being morbid — a lead- 
ing characteristic of men of genuine humor ; and it 
was this sense of humor that often enabled him to 
endure the most cruel strokes, that called for his 
sense of pity and cast a gloom over his official life. 
On these occasions he would relieve himself by com- 
paring trifles with great things and great things with 
trifles. No story was too trivial or even too coarse 



IN TROD UC TION. XXV 

for his purpose; provided that it aptly illustrated his 
ideas or served his policy. To this peculiar tend- 
ency of mind we owe the many stories and quaint 
sayings which lend to every recollection of Lincoln 
a stranofe and uncommon interest. 

I know no better illustration of the peculiar 
rapidity with which he would pass from one side 
of his nature to the other than a reminiscence for 
which I am indebted to Governor Curtin of Penn- 
sylvania, who, at the time, was one of the leading 
" War Governors." He was summoned to see Lin- 
coln, at the White House, on arriving after mid- 
night from the battle-field of Fredericksburg, where 
he had been inspecting the wounded and survey- 
ing this field of national disaster. Lincoln showed 
much anxiety about the wounded, and asked many 
questions about the battle. 

Governor Curtin replied, " Mr. President, it was 
not a battle, it was a butchery," and proceeded to 
give a graphic description of the scenes he had wit- 
nessed. Lincoln was heart-broken at the recital, and 
soon reached a state of nervous excitement border- 
ing on insanity. 

Finally, as the Governor was leaving the room, he 
went forward, and, taking the President by the hand, 
tenderly expressed his sympathy for his sorrow. 
He said, " Mr. President, I am deeply touched by 
your sorrow, and at the distress I have caused you. 



XXVI IN TROD UC TION. 

I have only answered your questions. No doubt 
my impressions have been colored by the sufferings 
I have seen. I trust matters will look briofhter when 
the official reports come in. I would give all I 
possess to know how to rescue you from this ter- 
rible war." 

Lincoln's whole aspect suddenly changed, and he 
relieved his mind by telling a story. 

"This reminds me, Governor," he said, "of an 
old farmer out in Illinois that I used to know. He 
took it into his head to go into hog raising. He 
sent out to Europe and imported the finest breed 
of hogs he could buy. The prize hog was put in 
a pen, and the farmer's two mischievous boys — 
James and John — were told to be sure not to let 
him out. But James, the worst of the two, let 
the brute out next day. The hog went straight 
for the boys, and drove John up a tree. Then 
the hog went for the seat of James's trousers, and 
the only way the boy could save himself was by 
holding on to the hog's tail. The hog would not 
give up his hunt nor the boy his hold ! After 
they had made a good many circles around the 
tree, the boy's courage began to give out, and he 
shouted to his brother, ' I say, John, come down, 
quick, and help me let this hog go ! ' Now, Gov- 
ernor, that is exactly my case. I wish some one 
would come and help me let this hog go ! " 



INTRODUCTION. XXVll 

This was a striking illustration of the sudden tran- 
sitions to which Lincoln's nature was prone. It 
sought relief in the most trying situations by recall- 
ing some parallel incident of a humorous character. 
His sense of humor never flagged. Even in his 
telegraphic correspondence with his generals we 
have instances of it which reflect his peculiar 
vein. 

General Sherman, who, like Caesar in this as in 
ot'her respects, enjoys a joke even at his own ex- 
pense, relates a story that illustrates this peculiar- 
ity. Soon after the battle of Shiloh the President 
promoted two ofificers to Major-Generalships. A 
good deal of dissatisfaction was expressed at this 
act. Among other critics of the President was 
General Sherman himself, who telegraphed to 
Washington, that, if such ill-advised promotions 
continued, the best chance for officers would be to 
be transferred from the front to the rear. This 
telegram was shown to the President. He immedi- 
ately replied by telegraph to the General that, in the 
matter of appointments, he was necessarily guided 
by officers whose opinions and knowledge he valued 
and respected. 

"The two appointments," he added, "referred to 
by you in your dispatch to a gentleman in Wash- 
ington were made at the suggestion of two men 
whose advice and character I prize most highly : 



XXVI 11 INTRODUCTION. 

I refer to Generals Grant and Sherman." General 
Sherman then recalled the fact that, in the flush of 
victory, General Grant and himself had both recom- 
mended these promotions, but that it had escaped 
his memory at the time of writing his telegraphic 
dispatch. 

The oddity of Lincoln's reply is characteristic. 
He subsequently sent to General Sherman the right 
to promote, at his own choice, eight colonels under 

his command. 

> 

His feeling toward Sherman and Grant, at the 
close of the war, as well as his extreme sensitiveness 
to rebuke on the part of those he esteemed, is well 
illustrated by another incident, for which, also, I am 
indebted to General Sherman. In conversation with 
him — I think at Richmond — the President asked 
the General whether he could guess what had al- 
ways attracted him to Grant and Sherman and led 
to a friendlier feeling for them than he had for 
others. "It was because," he said, "you never 
found fault with me, from the days of Vicksburg 
down." 

There is a sermon in these words which sug- 
gests many reflections. The responsibility of office 
weighed heavily upon the President, but never over- 
whelmed him ; yet the rebuke of a friend caused him 
the keenest pangs. 

General Schenck once told me of being with 



INTRODUCTION. XXIX 

Lincoln on the occasion of his receiving bad news 
from the army. Placing his hands upon the 
General's knee and speaking with much emotion, he 
said, "You have little idea of the terrible weight of 
care and sense of responsibility of this office of mine, 
Schenck, if to be at the head of Hell is as hard as 
what I have to undergo here, I could find it in my 
heart to pity Satan himself." 

It will be seen from this remark that Lincoln was 
sometimes weary of the great burden that had 
fallen on him, and that he would gladly have re- 
signed it to others had this seemed possible without 
imperilling the national interests he had so close at 
heart. 

The following war episode, related to me by Mr. 
W. H. Croffut, who has given much attention to the 
subject, will help to illustrate the willingness of Lin- 
coln to put into other hands, and even to surrender 
to another political party, the administration of the 
Government, provided that the act could contribute 
toward the great end of peace and reunion. Mr. 
Croffut says : 

I have forgotten the exact month to which the 
beginning of this narrative refers ; indeed, I am not 
quite certain about the year, but it was winter time 
— probably the dawn of 1880. I had called at 
Thurlow Weed's, to inquire after the health of that 
aged man, then fourscore, and to enjoy hearing him 



XXX INTRODUCTION. 

talk about the by-gone times in which he bore a dis- 
tinguished part. His tall form reclined upon a 
lounge wheeled in front of a hearth blazing with 
cannel coal. As I casually mentioned General Mc- 
Clellan in the conversation, he raised himself on his 
elbow and said, " He might have been President as 
well as not." Responding to my expression of 
surprise and interest, he went on : 

" I'll tell you what led up to it. About the 
middle of December, 1862, Seward telegraphed me 
to come to Washington. It had happened before 
that I had been summoned in the same way. I 
took it as a matter of course and caught the first 
train South. I got to Washington, and, after break- 
fast, went straight to the State Department. Mr. 
Seward was waiting for me. He took me right over 
to the White House, saying, ' The President wants 
to see you.' 

" We found the President deeply depressed and 
distressed. I had never seen him in such a mood. 
' Everything goes wrong,' he broke out. ' The rebel 
armies hold their own-; Grant is wandering around 
in Mississippi ; Burnside manages to keep ahead of 
Lee ; Seymour has carried New York, and, if his 
party carries and holds many of the Northern States, 
we shall have to give up the fight, for we can never 
conquer three-quarters of our countrymen, scattered 
in front, flank, and rear. What shall we do ? ' 



INTRODUCTION. XXXI 

" I suggested that we could continue to wait, and 
that the man capable of leading our splendid armies 
would come in time. 

"'That's what I've been saying,' said Seward, 
who didn't believe, even then, that the war was go- 
ing to be a long one. 

" Mr. Lincoln did not seem to heed the remark, 
but he said : 

" ' Governor Seymour could do more for our cause 
than any other man living. He has been elected 
Governor of our largest State. If he would come 
to the front he could control his partisans, and give 
a new impetus to the war. I have sent for you, Mr. 
Weed, to ask you to go to Governor Seymour and 
tell him what I say. Tell him, now is his time. 
Tell him, I do not wish to be President again, and 
that the leader of the other party, provided it is in 
favor of a vigorous war against the rebellion, should 
have my place. Entreat him to give the true ring 
to his annual message ; and if he will, as he easily 
can, place himself at the head of a great Union 
party, I will gladly stand aside and help to put him 
in the Executive Chair. All we want is to have the 
rebellion put down.' 

" I was not greatly surprised, for I knew before 
that such was the President's view. I had before 
heard him say, ' If there is a man who can push our 
armies forward one mile further or one hour faster 



XXXll INTRODUCTION. 

than I can, he is the man that ought to be in my 
place.' 

'* I visited Governor Seymour at Albany, and 
delivered my commission from Lincoln. It was 
received most favorably. Seymour's feeling was 
always right, but his head was generally wrong. 
When I left him it was understood that his message 
to the Leeislature would breathe an earnest Union 
spirit, praising the soldiers and calling for more, 
and omitting the usual criticisms of the President. 
I forwarded this expectation to Lincoln. 

"Judge of my disappointment and chagrin when 
Seymour's message came out — a document calcu- 
lated to aid the enemy. It demanded that the war 
should be prosecuted ' on constitutional grounds ' 
— as if any war ever was or ever could be — and 
denounced the administration for the arbitrary arrest 
of Vallandipfham and the enforcement of the draft. 

"This attempt to enflist the leader of the Demo- 
cratic party having failed, Lincoln authorized me 
to make the same overture to McClellan. 

" ' Tell the General,' he said, ' that we have no 
wish to injure or humiliate him ; that we wish only 
for the success of our armies ; that if he will come 
forward and put himself at the head of a Union- 
Democratic party, and, through that means, push 
forward the Union cause, I will gladly step aside 
and do all I can to secure his election in 1864.' 



INTRODUCTION. XXXUl 

" I Opened negotiations through S. L. M. Barlow, 
McClellan's next friend. Mr. Barlow called. I told 
him the scheme to bring McClellan forward. He 
approved of it, and agreed to see the General. He 
shortly afterward told me he had seen him and 
secured his acquiescence ; ' for,' he added, ' Mac is 
eager to do all he can do to put down the rebellion.' 
I suggested a great Union-Democratic meeting in 
Union Square, at which McClellan should preside 
and set forth his policy, and this was agreed to by 
both Mr. Barlow and McClellan. At the sugges- 
tion of Mr. Barlow, I drew up some memoranda of 
principles which it seemed to me desirable to set 
forth on that occasion, and these Mr. Barlow agreed 
to deliver to McClellan. The time set for the mass 
meeting was Monday, June i6th. Once more there 
seemed a promise of breaking the Northern hostil- 
ity and ending the war, by organizing a great inde- 
pendent Union party under McClellan. But this 
hope failed us, too. For, on the very eve of the 
meeting, I received a formal letter from McClellan 
declining to preside, without giving reasons. If he 
had presided at that war-meeting, and had persist- 
ently followed it up, nothing but death could have 
kept him from being elected President of the United 
States in 1864." 

This narrative, continues Mr. Croffut, seemed to 
me so extraordinary that I called on General McClel- 



XXXI V INTRODUCTION. 

Ian, who resided on Gramercy Park, and told him the 
story, with the purpose of ascertaining why he did 
not preside at the meeting after agreeing to do so. 

" You amaze me ! " he said. " No such events 
ever occurred. Mr. Weed is a good old man, and 
he has forgotten. Mr. Lincoln never offered me 
the Presidency in any contingency. I never de- 
clined to preside at, a war-meeting. How could I, 
when I was a Union soldier, and the only criticism 
I ever made on the Administration was that it did 
not push the armies fast enough? There never was 
a time when I would have refused to preside at any 
meeting that could help the Union cause. I re- 
member nothing about any such memoranda, and 
am sure I never wrote to Thurlow Weed in my 
life." 

I asked the General if no such overture was ever 
made by Mr. Weed. 

" Not as I remember," he said. " I recollect his 
once speaking to me about the desirableness of 
taking the leadership of a War-Democratic party, 
but I do not remember the purport of this proposi- 
tion." 

At General McClellan's suggestion I called on 
Mr. Barlow, who also had forgotten all about it. 

Returning to Mr. Weed's, I asked if he could 
find the letter received from General McClellan, in 
which he declined to preside at a war-meeting. He 



INTRODUCTION. XXXV 

doubted if he had kept it, but Miss Harriet Weed, 
his faithful daughter and invaluable secretary, going 
in search of it, returned in an hour, bringing it from 
an upper room. It ran as follows : 

(Private) 

Oaklands, N. J., June 13, 1863. 
My Dear Sir : 

Your kind note is received. 

For what I cannot doubt that you would consider 
good reasons, I have determined to decline the com- 
pliment of presiding over the proposed meeting of 
Monday next. 

I fully concur with you in the conviction that an 
honorable peace is not now possible, and that the 
war must be prosecuted to save the Union and the 
Government, at whatever cost of time and treasure 
and blood. 

I am clear, also, in the conclusion that the policy 
governing the conduct of the war should be one 
looking not only to military success, but also to 
ultimate re-union, and that it should consequently 
be such as to preserve the rights of all Union-loving 
citizens, wherever they may be, as far as compatible 
with military security. My views as to the prosecu- 
tion of the war remain, substantially, as they have 
been from the beginning of the contest ; these views 
I have made known officially. 



XXXvI INTRODUCTION. 

I will endeavor to write you more fully before 

Monday. 

In the meantime believe me to be, in great haste, 

truly your friend, 

GEORGE B. McCLELLAN. 

Hon. Thurlow Weed, New York. 

" The General has forgotten that formal letter, 
has he?" said Mr. Weed, smiling. " If he had pre- 
sided at that meeting, and rallied his party to the 
support of the war, he would have been President. 
I never heard what his reasons were, either ' before 
Monday' or any other day. Just see what an em- 
barrassing time it was to refuse to preside at a war- 
meetinof. Grant seemed to be stalled in front of 
Vicksburg, and that very morning came a report 
that he was going to raise the siege. Banks was 
defeated, the day before, at Port Hudson, and, two 
days earlier, a rebel privateer had captured six of 
our vessels off the Chesapeake. The very day that 
McClellan wrote the letter, Lee was rapidly march- 
ing through Maryland into Pennsylvania, and the 
North was in a panic. There couldn't have been a 
worse time to decline to preside at a Union meet- 
ing, and I am sorry that the General has forgotten 
what prevented his doing so." 

I took the letter and returned to General Mc- 
Clellan with it. 

" Well ! " he exclaimed, as he took it and in- 



INTRODUCTION. XXXVll 

spected it, " that is my writing. I wrote that, and 
had forgotten about it. I don't know why I de- 
dined to preside ; but it was probably because I 
am shy in the presence of multitudes, am not in 
the habit of speech-making, and should be certain to 
preside awkwardly. But why should anybody sup- 
pose me indifferent to the prosecution of the war ? " 

"Because," I said, "a year later they found you 
standing as a candidate for President on a platform 
which declared the war up to that time a failure, 
and seemed to disparage the services of our soldiers 
in the field." 

" I never stood on that platform a day ! " he ex- 
claimed. " Everybody knows I did not. I repudi- 
ated it in my letter, and made my repudiation of it 
the only condition of accepting the nomination. I 
told all my friends so ! " 

"Mr. Weed thinks," I added, "that if you had 
presided instead of refusing to preside, and had fol- 
lowed it up with corresponding action, it would have 
united the North, finished the war a year sooner, 
saved thousands of lives, and made you President." 

" Oh, well," "he said, laughing, " that's an interest- 
ing speculation. Nobody can tell. At any rate I 
didn't, and it's all over now." 

Shortly afterward, I mentioned these facts to 
Frederick W. Seward. 

"Yes," he said, "I have often heard Mr. Weed 



X X X V i i i ^-^' TR on uc tion. 

tell the story. The fact is that neither Lincoln 
nor my father expected that the Administration 
would be re-elected. Their only hope was to have 
the war carried on vigorously. The President used 
to say, ' I am sure there are men who could do more 
for the success of our armies in my place than I am 
doing ; I would gladly stand aside and let such a 
one take my place, any day.' Looking back at the 
Mexican and other wars, we thought some general 
would succeed Lincoln in 1864, and McClellan evi- 
dently thought so too. We did not foresee the 
tremendous victories and the splendid wave of pa- 
triotic feeling that carried Lincoln in again." 

Colonel John Hay tells me that he is acquainted 
with Lincoln's effort to stir up McClellan and Sey- 
mour, heard, I suppose, when he was in the White 
House. And Roscoe Conkling tells me that it is 
not news to him. 

One morning, a year before he died, Mr. Weed 
said to me : 

" Governor Seymour was here yesterday. He 
stayed to dinner, and we had a good talk about old 
times. I spoke of the scheme to make him Presi- 
dent, and he remembered the details as I did. But 
he said that his reason for his action was that he 
'wanted to carry on the war legally.' He said he 
couldn't have carried his party with him to approve 
of the arbitrary arrest by Stanton of the Northern 



INTRODUCTION. XXXIX 

Opponents of the war. When Seymour was sitting 
here I told him that he would have been President, 
certain, if he had come out heartily and unreserv- 
edly for the war in 1863; and he said, 'Well, it 
isn't much matter. I was not in good health at the 
time, and it might have killed me. It is a hard, 
laborious, thankless office — it is just as well as 
It is. 



No act or utterance of General McClellan should 
be interpreted to convey any feeling of resentment 
toward Lincoln. In a conversation, not over two 
months before his death, General McClellan affirmed 
to me his belief that Lincoln intended to give him 
all the time for preparation that he required and 
demanded. The conversation turned upon the 
battle of Antietam, when some reference to the 
President's visit to the field occasioned the remark. 

General McClellan had fought the battle without 
a commission. The victory proclaimed, the Presi- 
dent at once visited the scene of conflict. 

" I remember well," said General McClellan, " our 
sitting on the hillside together, Lincoln, in his own 
ungainly way, propped up by his long legs, with his 
knees almost under his chin. 

"'General,' said he to me, 'you have saved the 
country. You must remain in command and carry 
us through to the end.' 



xl INTRODUCIION. 

" ' That will be impossible,' replied McClellan. 
'We need time. The influences at Washineton will 
be too strong for you, Mr. President. I will not be 
allowed the required time for preparation. ' " 

General McClellan then recalled the exact words 
of Lincoln in reply : 

" General, I pledge myself to stand between you 
and harm." 

" And I honestly believe," said General McClellan, 
"that the President meant every word he said, but 
that the influences at Washington were, as I pre- 
dicted, too strong for him or for any living man." 

In a conversation with General Sherman, I once 
asked him if he had ever heard the story that 
General Grant, at one important crisis, cut the tele- 
graph wires between Washington and his headquar- 
ters in order to get rid of civil interference with his 
military operations. 

" Did he ? " said the General, laughing, " why, I 
did that ! I never heard before that Grant did 
it!" 

He spoke for some time of the serious obstacles 
to the prosecution of the war caused by political 
interferences, and added, " I could do more with 
one hundred thousand men free from political con- 
trol, than with three hundred thousand near Wash- 
ington." 

In the better sense, Lincoln was, perhaps, some- 



INTRODUCTION. xll 

what of a casuist in believing that the end some- 
times sanctifies the means ; but his masterly com- 
mon sense was the guiding beacon in every stress 
and storm of events. He was so great in all the 
larger attributes of statesmanship that few, aside 
from those intimately associated with him, recog- 
nized his genius as a practical politician. He was 
ambitious, not merely because he knew his own 
great resources and aptitudes, but because he pro- 
foundly believed himself to be necessary to the 
country in the dire exigencies of the period. He 
alone had complete grasp of a situation unparalleled 
in our history ; and this was the general conviction 
of the large majority of the loyal men of the North. 
There is no cause, then, to marvel that he should 
have^ greatly desired a re-election in 1864, because 
his second term would not only cover the close of 
the war drama which, for four years, had absorbed 
the attention of a watchful world, but also the still 
greater responsibilities of reconstructing the shat- 
tered Union. 

Recognizing the fact that the anxiety of Lin- 
coln for a second term was a far nobler passion than 
anything rooted in mere personal pride or ambition, 
and remembering his offer to Governor Seymour, 
we can easily understand how he could justify him- 
self in bringing all his skill in practical politics to 
bear on the problem of re-election. 



xlii INTRODUCTION. 

An incident, hitherto unpublished, will illustrate 
this trait. 

During the fall of 1864 it became evident that 
Pennsylvania was a "doubtful State." General JMc- 
Clellan, the candidate of the Democratic party, was 
not only popular there as a native Pennsylvanian, 
but, even among those loyal to the administration, 
he had a strong following and great sympathy, from 
the belief that he had been a much abused man. 
Lincoln was advised by the Republican State Com- 
mittee of Pennsylvania that the prospect was very 
uncertain. It was felt that, on the result in the 
Keystone State, hinged the fate of the national 
election. A gentleman belonging to the Republican 
Committee, then, as now, one of the leading poli- 
ticians of the State, had a consultation with the 
President on the situation. He thus relates the 
interview : 

" Mr. President," I said, " the only sure way to 
organize victory in this contest, is to have some 
fifteen thousand, or more, Pennsylvania soldiers fur- 
louehed and sent home to vote. While their votes 
in the field would count man for man, their pres- 
ence at the polls at home would exert an influence 
not easily to be estimated, by excitmg enthusiasm 
and building up party morale. I would advise you 
to send a private message to General Grant, to be 
given in an unofiicial way, asking for such an issu- 



INTRODUCTION. xHii 

ance of furloughs to Pennsylvania soldiers in the 
field." 

Lincoln was silent for some moments and seemed 
to be pondering. Then he answered : 

" I have never had any intimation from General 
Grant as to his feeling for me. I don't know how 
far he would be disposed to be my friend in the 
matter, nor do I think it would be safe to trust 
him." 

The President's interlocutor responded with some 
heat, " And do you mean to say that the man 
at whose back you stood, in defiance of the clamor 
of the country, for whom you fought through thick 
and thin, would not stand by you now ? " 

" I don't know that General Grant would be my 
friend in this matter," reiterated the President. 

" Then, let it be done through General Meade, 
the direct commander of the Army of the Potomac — 
and General Sheridan, how about him ? " 

At this question, Lincoln's face grew sunny and 
bright. "I can trust Phil," he said; "he's all 
right ! " 

As a result of this conference, one of the assist- 
ant secretaries of war was sent to Petersburg with a 
strictly unofficial message to General Meade, and 
another agent was deputed to visit General Sher- 
idan. Some 10,000 or more Pennsylvania soldiers 
went home to vote when the time came, and Penn- 



xliv INTRODUCTION. 

sylvania was carried by a handsome majority for the 
administration. 

If statesmanship is a practical science, to be tested 
by the touch-stone of enduring success, then is Lin- 
coln entitled to a place among the world's great 
statesmen. He was not of the rulers who seek only 
to impress their own will on the nation. He was 
not of the rulers who play for mere place in the 
great game of politics. 

As, in the first instance, tyrants are the selfish 
masters, so, in the other, demagogues are the selfish 
servants. But, above them, stand the men who have 
sought power to hold it as a sacred trust, and whose 
ambition and conduct are regulated by an ardent 
purpose to serve great national interests. It seems 
not too much to say that among these was Lincoln. 

He was pre-eminently a democratic ruler. Pro- 
foundly believing in a government of the people, 
by the people and for the people, however earnest 
his wish, as a man, to promote and enact justice 
between classes and races, he never went faster nor 
further than to enforce the will of the people that 
elected him. His strength as a President lay in his 
deep sympathy with the people, " the plain folks," 
as he loved to call them, and his intuitive knowl- 
edge of all their thoughts and aims, their prejudices 
and preferences, equally and alike. He was elected 
to save the L^nion, not to destroy slavery ; and 



IN TROD UC TION. xl 



XIV 



he did not aid, directly or indirectly, the movement 
to abolish slavery, until the voice of the people 
was heard demanding it in order that the Union 
might be saved. He did not free the negro for 
the sake of the slave, but for the sake of the 
Union. It is an error to class him with the noble 
band of abolitionists to whom neither Church 
nor State was sacred when it sheltered slavery. He 
signed the proclamation of emancipation solely be- 
cause it had become impossible to restore the Union 
with slavery. 

Like the nation itself, Lincoln, although personally 
opposed to slavery, was but slowly educated into the 
belief that no republican civilization could endure 
with slavery as a corner-stone, or even as one of the 
pillars, of the Temple of Democracy. He believed 
that the spread of slavery should be resisted ; for 
the Constitution did not contemplate its extension. 
He believed at one time that slavery should not be 
interfered with in the States that sustained it ; for 
the Constitution^ in fact, although not in words, had 
recognized its legality. It was not until slavery or 
the Union must be sacrificed that he became the 
emancipator of the negro race in America. 

The Constitution, indeed, was the fetich of the 
pre-rebellion period of our history, and it com- 
manded the loyal worship of nearly all the earlier 
statesmen of the republic. 



xlvi INTRODUCTION. 

It was not until the Southern politicians, growing 
more and more arrogant, passed, with the aid of 
their Northern allies, the Fugitive Slave Law, that 
the conscience of the North made itself felt as a 
political force ; for, hitherto, it had been satisfied 
with moral and religious protests, or with silent 
lamentations over the impossibility of abolishing 
slavery under the Federal Constitution. 

That act gave the death-blow to the Whig party. 
Out of its ashes arose the Republican party, which 
was organized solely to prevent the extension of 
slavery into virgin territory, but which was destined 
to destroy it and subsequently to enfranchise the 
slaves whom it had emancipated. 

Yet the Fugitive Slave Law did not arouse in 
Abraham Lincoln the profound indignation that he 
was afterward to transmute into emancipation. 

The Fugitive Slave Law, by some oversight, had 
omitted the District of Columbia from its opera- 
tions. On the loth of January, 1849, in the 30th 
Congress, Abraham Lincoln offered a resolution to 
extend the Fugitive Slave Law over the District of 
Columbia ! 

It was for this act, when the news of his nomina- 
tion for the presidency reached Massachusetts, that 
he was denounced by the greatest of American anti- 
slavery orators, Wendell Phillips, as " the Slave 
Hound of Illinois." 



INTRODUCTIOiV. xl 



Vll 



This proposition, however, was not presented in 
what might otherwise have well been regarded as its 
naked deformity. It was part of a bill, offered by 
the obscure congressman from Illinois, to provide for 
the gradual extinction of slavery in the District. 

As this incident in the public life of Lincoln has 
been but slightly noticed, it may be well to put the 
entire record before the reader : 

" Jamiary 8, 1849. At Second Session, 30th Con- 
gress, Mr. Lincoln voted against a motion to suspend 
the rules and take up the following : 

''Resolved : That the Committee on the Judiciary 
is hereby instructed to report a bill to the House, 
providing effectually for the apprehension and de- 
livery of fugitives from Iowa who have escaped, or 
who may escape, from one State into another." 

''Jamiary 13, 1849. Mr. Lincoln gave notice of 
a motion for leave to introduce a bill abolishing 
slavery in the District of Columbia by consent of 
the free white people of the District of Columbia, 
with compensation to owners. 

" At Second Session, 30th Congress, January 10th, 
1849, John Wentworth, of Illinois, introduced the 
following : 

" Whereas, The traffic now prosecuted in this 
metropolis of the Republic in human beings as 



xlviii INTRODUCTION. 

chattels is contrary to natural justice and the fun- 
damental principles of our political system, and is 
notoriously a reproach to our country throughout 
Christendom, and a serious hinderance to the prog- 
ress of republican liberty among the nations of the 
earth ; therefore, 

''Resolved, That the Committee for the District 
of Columbia be instructed to report a bill, as soon 
as practicable, prohibiting the slave trade in said 
District." 

" Mr. Lincoln thereupon read an amendment which 
he intended to offer, if he could obtain the oppor- 
tunity, as follows : 

" That the Committee on the District of Colum- 
bia be instructed to report a bill in substance as 
follows : 

, "Sec. I. Be it enacted, etc., That no person not 
now within the District of Columbia, nor now owned 
by any person or persons now resident within it, nor 
hereafter born within it, shall ever be held in slavery 
within said District. 

" Sec. 2. That no person now within said District, 
or now owned by any person or persons now resi- 
dent within the same, or hereafter born within it, 
shall ever be held in slavery within the limits of 
said District. 

''Provided, That officers of the Government of 



IN TROD UCTION. xl 1 



IX 



the United States, being citizens of the slave-hold- 
ing States, coming into said District on public busi- 
ness, and remaining only so long as may be reason- 
ably necessary for that object, may be attended into 
and out of said District, and while there, by the 
necessary servants of themselves and their families, 
without their rights to hold such servants in service 
being thereby impaired. 

"Sec. 3. That all children born of slave mothers 
within said District on or after the first day of Janu- 
ary, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight 
hundred and fifty, shall be free ; but shall be rea- 
sonably supported and educated by the respective 
owners of their mothers, or by their heirs or repre- 
sentatives, and shall serve reasonable service as ap- 
prentices to such owners, heirs and representatives, 
until they respectively arrive at the age of — years, 
when they shall be entirely free ; but the municipal 
authorities of Washington and Georgetown, within 
their respective jurisdictional limits, are hereby em- 
powered and required to make all suitable and nec- 
essary provisions for enforcing obedience to this 
section, on the part of both masters and apprentices; 

" Sec. 4. That all persons now within said District, 
lawfully held as slaves, or now owned by any person 
or persons now residents within said District, shall 
remain such at the will of their respective owners, 
their heirs and legal representatives ; 



1 INTRODUCTION. 

'' Pi^ovided^ That any such owner, or his legal repre- 
sentatives, may at any time receive from the Treas- 
ury of the United States the full value of his or her 
slave of the class in this section mentioned, upon 
which such slave shall be forthwith and forever free. 

''And provided fur tJmr, That the President of the 
United States, the Secretary of State, and the Secre- 
tary of the Treasury shall be a board for determin- 
ing the value of such slaves as their owners may 
desire to emancipate under this section, and whose 
duty it shall be to hold a session for such purpose 
on the first Monday of each calendar month, to re- 
ceive all applications, and, on satisfactory evidence 
in each case that the person presented for valuation 
is a slave and of the class in this section mentioned, 
and is owned by the applicant, shall value such slave 
at his or her full cash value, and give to the appli- 
cant an order on the Treasury for the amount, and 
also to such slave a certificate of freedom. 

"Sec. 5. That the municipal authorities of Wash- 
ington and Georgetown, within their respective juris- 
dictional limits, are hereby empowered and required 
to provide active and efficient means to arrest and 
deliver up to their owners all fugitive slaves escap- 
ing into said districts. 

"Sec. 6. That the officers of elections within said 
District of Columbia are hereby empowered and re- 
quired to open polls at all the usual places of hold- 



INTRODUCTION. H 

ing elections on the first Monday of April next, 
and receive the vote of every free white male cit- 
izen above the age of twenty-one years, having re- 
sided within said District for the period of one year 
or more next preceding the time of such voting for 
or against this act, to proceed in taking such votes 
in all respects, not herein specified, as at elections 
under the municipal laws, and with as little delay 
as possible to transmit correct statements of the 
votes so cast to the President of the United States; 
and it shall be the duty of the President to canvass 
such votes immediately, and if a majority of them 
be found to be for this act. to forthwith issue his 
proclamation giving notice of the fact ; and this act 
shall only be in full force and effect on and after 
the day of such proclamation. 

" Sec. 7. That involuntary servitude for the pun- 
ishment of crime whereof the party shall have been 
duly convicted shall in nowise be prohibited by this 
act. 

" Sec. 8. That for all the purposes of this act, the 
jurisdictional limits of Washington are extended to 
all parts of the District of Columbia not now in- 
cluded within the present limits of Georgetown." 

It was the 5th section of this bill that aroused 
Wendell Phillips's indignation. Both of these emi- 
nent men lived long enough to honor each other's 



Hi IN TR OD UC TION. 

services and complement each other's career — for, 
without the agitator, the emancipator would have 
had no public opinion to support him, and, without 
Mr. Lincoln's act, Mr. Phillips's oratory would have 
remained brilliant rhetoric only. 

Growing, as the people grew, in moral conviction, 
sympathizing with them and aiming only to do their 
will, Abraham Lincoln may rightly be regarded as 
a model democratic statesman. Thus growing and 
thus acting, his official measures had all the force of a 
resistless fate. What he achieved endured, because 
it was founded on the rock of the people's will. It 
has been the destiny of many illustrious reformers 
to outlive the reforms for which they zealously strove, 
and history furnishes innumerable illustrations of the 
truth that reforms not based on public opinion rarely 
outlast the lifetime of their champions. What eager 
idealists, therefore, decried in Lincoln — his loyal 
deference to the will of the majority, his tardiness 
in adopting radical measures, and his reluctance to 
advance more rapidly than the "plain folks" — 
time has shown to be the highest wisdom In the 
ruler of a democracy. 

Lincoln's deep-rooted faith in representative de- 
mocracy was strikingly illustrated in his first public 
act — the appointment of his Cabinet. Believing in 
the rightfulness of party rule, that is to say, in the 
rule of the majority, instead of seeking to call as his 



INTRODUCTION. \\\\ 

councillors men who might serve his personal ends, 
he selected them from the most popular of his rivals 
— men who had competed with him for the Presiden- 
tial nomination. His Cabinet thus represented not 
only every division of his party, but consisted of 
those whom these factions regarded as their ablest 
representatives. It was a Cabinet of " all the talents " 
and all the popularities ; and yet among these vet- 
eran statesmen, most of them long-trained and skill- 
ful in all the arts of statecraft, Lincoln was acknowl- 
edged the master spirit. This Cabinet numbered 
among its members men no less eminent than Sew- 
ard, Chase and Stanton. 

The question of ascendency in the Cabinet during 
the War of the Rebellion is still earnestly discussed 
by some. The names of Lincoln, Seward and Stan- 
ton have each advocates claiming unquestioned pre- 
eminence for one or the other of these great states- 
men. Some, with greater zeal and fidelity than 
knowledge or justice, have sought to exalt the 
great Secretary of State or the great Secretary of 
War at the expense of the great War President. 
Surely no labor of love could be more futile. For 
history will place all of these illustrious Americans 
on the most honored pedestals in the nation's pan- 
theon, and will add that each of them supplemented, 
not overshadowed, his associates. Yet no one who 
was familiar with the secrets of the administration 



liv INTRODUCTION. 

could well doubt that in all critical issues the uncouth 
Western statesman, unused to power, asserted and 
maintained his inherent as well as his official suprem- 
acy. His common sense, his unselfish purpose, his 
keen perceptions, his unostentatious manners, his 
mental ubiquity, and his insight into men, soon made 
him as pre-eminent and as powerful with the leaders 
of the people as he had always been with the people 
themselves. 

Stanton's iron will was felt at every important 
epoch of the war, but when his idea of policy con- 
flicted with the purpose of his chief, the great War 
Minister was forced to yield. Seward, perhaps the 
ablest American diplomatist of the century, found 
also in the man of the people a master who knew 
when to exact implicit obedience. This fact is dem- 
onstrated by the State document herewith repro- 
duced \n facsimile '"^ — the dispatch conveying to Mr. 
Adams, our Minister at the Court of St. James's, 
Mr. Seward's first full instructions after the outbreak 
of the Rebellion. It was corrected by the Presi- 
dent, as will now be seen, in words that testify to 
his statesmanship, as, without question, they saved 
the nation from a war with England, which, at that 
period, would probably have resulted in the estab- 
lishment of the Southern Confederacy. 

* Th.15 facsimile, originally designed by me for this volume, was, for urgent 
reasons, unnecessary here to state, first published in the issue of the North. 
American Revieiu for April, 1886. 



IN TROD UC TION. Iv 

Lincoln, then, had been President for only three 
months. Certainly, when he came to the office, the 
farthest thing from the thought of the people was to 
credit him with diplomatic knowledge or skill. But 
this paper, by its erasures, its substitutions and its 
amendments, shows a nice sense of the shades of 
meaning in words, a comprehensive knowledge of 
the situation, and a thorough appreciation of the 
grave results which might follow the use of terms 
that he either modified or erased. These correc- 
tions of Mr. Seward's dispatch, by the "rail-splitter" 
of Illinois, form a most interesting addition to the 
history of Lincoln, and to that of our diplomacy. 

The paper is one that needs few comments to 
bring its remarkable character before the reader. 
The burdens of home affairs, which then lay heavily 
on the new President, will readily recur to every 
student of our history. The countless demands 
upon his time gave little opportunity for reflection. 
Prompt action was required in all directions and in 
everything, small and great. But, as his handiwork 
shows, he turned with perfect composure from the 
home to the equally threatening foreign field, and 
revised, with a master-hand, the most important dis- 
patch that had as yet been prepared by Mr. Seward. 
The work shows a freedom, an insight into foreign 
affairs, a skill in the use of language, a delicacy of 
criticism and a discrimination in methods of diplo- 



Ivi INTRODUCTION. 

matic dealing which entitle the President to the 
honors of an astute statesman. 

The opening of the dispatch is Mr. Seward's first 
draft as corrected by himself. The President's re- 
vision begins with the direction to leave out the 
paragraph, "We intend to have a clear and simple 
record of whatever issue may arise between us and 
Great Britain." He seemed to see no reason for 
harshly reproving Mr. Dallas ; and so he modified 
the expression, " The President is surprised and 
grieved," to the President "regrets." With the mul- 
tiplicity of facts crowding his mind, he yet did not 
forget that no explanations had been demanded of 
Great Britain ; and so he wrote in the margin : 
" Leave out, because it does not appear that such 
explanations were demanded." He did not care to 
reflect upon the body of our representatives abroad, 
and therefore he struck out the sentence on that 
subject, which is marked. He crossed out "wrong- 
ful" and wrote "hurtful," showing a knowledge of 
the exact value of words worthy of a Trench. A 
wrongful act implies intention to harm, but in the 
word " hurtful " the charge of intent is not found. 
In the unsettled condition of the question of recog- 
nizing the Southern Confederacy, he did not deem 
it best to threaten ; and so, instead of " No one of 
these proceedings will be borne by the United 
States," he first substituted " will pass unnoticed," 



IN TROD UCTION. 1 vi i 

for " borne," and then, strengthening his own ex- 
pression somewhat, he finally wrote "will pass un- 
questioned." 

In discussing the question of privateers, Lincoln 
wrote "Omit" opposite another threat in the ex- 
pression, " the laws of nations afford an adequate 
and proper remedy, and we shall avail ourselves of 
it." This last clause he struck out. An examination 
of the facsimile will at once disclose the nature of 
the more extensive changes that were made. The 
close of the letter exhibits further examples of minor 
corrections which are of exceedinsf interest. The 
changes in one sentence are especially noteworthy. 
"If that nation will now repeat the same great 
crime," wrote Mr. Seward. " If that nation shall 
now repeat the same great cjn^or" amended Lincoln. 
"Social calajnities'' he changed to "social conv2il- 
siofis,'' as if he had in mind that, in the end, the re- 
sults might not prove calamitous, however great 
the convulsions. The paper will bear long study, 
and no one can examine it without acquiring a new 
and more exalted estimate of Lincoln's many-sided 
powers. 

Frequent efforts have been made to obtain a copy 
of the draft here published, but, even when backed 
by the authority of Congress, they have failed in 
securing it. 

In the Forty-fourth Congress, first session, in the 



Iviii INTRODUCTION. 

Senate, on Tuesday, June 6, 1876, Senator Boutwell 
offered, for present consideration, this resolution, to 
which he said he supposed there would be no objec- 
tion : 

"■Resolved, That the President be requested, if not 
in his opinion inconsistent with the public interests, 
to furnish the Senate with a fac-similc copy of the 
original draft of the letter of the Secretary of State 
to the Minister of the United States, at the Court 
of St. James's, in May, 1861, in relation to the proc- 
lamation of Her Majesty, the Queen of Great 
Britain, recognizing the belligerent character of the 
Confederate States." 

There being now no valid objection to its publicity, 
I have availed myself of an opportunity of giving 
to the public the draft of this famous diplomatic 
dispatch ; and, in order to make the comparison less 
difficult, the dispatch also is given in full, as printed 
in the official correspondence, page by page, with 
notes of the corrections made in the draft as ad- 
denda to each page. 

Of the value of this volume I may speak without 
vanity, as my function has been that of collector 
only. The contributors took an earnest and gener- 
ally a conspicuous part, each in his own field, in the 
great American struggle for nationality and free- 
dom. I have not sought to eliminate statements 
with which I disagree, nor to prevent the occasional 



INTRODUCTION. Hx 

conflict of testimony which results from that inhe- 
rent falh'bihty of human evidence that sometimes 
troubles, however slightly, even the highest sources 
of authority. Each writer reports what he himself 
believes, or saw, or heard, and stands sponsor for his 
own contribution to these interesting memoirs. 

It has been necessary to postpone the publication 
of many essays as interesting and as valuable as 
those embraced in this collection ; for, in my desire 
to secure the testimony of every eminent associate 
of Lincoln, I endeavored to leave no prominent 
American of the war period uninformed of the work 
in progress. These additional essays will appear at 
a later day. 

The public, I venture to believe, will look with 
sincere satisfaction upon the result obtained through 
the prompt and able co-operation of the distin- 
guished contributors to these reminiscences. For 
the time is fast coming when we shall seek in vain 
for survivors of the dark days that fashioned the ca- 
reer of Abraham Lincoln. Already, within the brief 
period of one year, death has stricken many names 
from the list — among them the historic ones of 
Grant, McClellan, Hancock, and McDowell. Yet 
a little while, and few witnesses will remain to tell 
the tale. And coming generations will remember 
with tenderness the recorded words of the oreat- 
hearted statesman to whom every sorrow of the 



Ix INTRODUCTION. 

nation was more than sorrow of his own. They 
will dwell fondly upon his pathetic simplicity, and 
with pride upon his rare and splendid gifts. With 
peculiar affection they will recall his every, utter- 
ance, grave or humorous. They will recollect with 
gratitude the devoted patriotism which guided him 
through all, and they will remember with keen sor- 
row the calamity of his tragic end. 

Allen Thorndike Rice. 



THE DISPATCH AS PRINTED. 

No. lo.] Department of State, 

Washington, May 21, 1861. 

Sir: This Government considers that our relations 
in Europe have reached a crisis in which it is neces- 
sary for It to take a decided stand, on which not 
only its immediate measures but its ultimate and 
permanent policy can be determined and defined. 
At the same time it neither means to menace Great 
Britain nor to wound the susceptibilities of that or 
any other European nation. That policy is devel- 
oped in this paper. 

The paper itself is not to be read or shown to the 
British Secretary of State, nor are any of its posi- 
tions to be prematurely, unnecessarily, or indiscreetly 
made known. But its spirit will be your guide. You 
will keep back nothing when the time arrives for its 
being said with dignity, propriety, and effect, and you 
will all the while be careful to say nothing that will 
be incongruous or inconsistent with the views which 
it contains. \See Page i of facsimile copy. 



INTRODUCTION. 1x1 

Mr. Dallas in a brief dispatch of May 2 (No. Z7)Z)^ 
tells us that Lord,. John Russell recently requested 
an interview with him on account of the solicitude 
which his lordship felt concerning the effect of cer- 
tain measures represented as likely to be adopted by 
the President. In that conversation the British Sec- 
retary told Mr. Dallas that the three representatives 
of the Southern Confederacy were then in London, 
that Lord John Russell had not yet seen them, but 
that he was not unwilling to see them, unofficially. 
He farther informed Mr. Dallas that an understand- 
ing- exists between the British and French Govern- 
ments which would lead both to take one and the 
same course as to recognition. His lordship then 
referred to SJ^'^S^ 2. 

the rumor of a meditated blockade by us of Southern 
ports, and a discontinuance of them as ports of entry. 
Mr. Dallas answered that he knew nothing on those 
topics, and therefore could say nothing. He added 
that you were expected to arrive in two weeks. 
Upon this statement Lord John Russell acquiesced 
in the expediency of waiting for the full knowl- 
edge you were expected to bring. 

Mr. Dallas transmitted to us some newspaper 
reports of ministerial explanations made in Parlia- 
ment. 

You will base no proceedings on parliamentary 
debates farther than to seek explanations when 
necessary and communicate them to this department. 

The President regrets \Page 3. 

On this page, after the word department, the Presi- 
dent drew a line around the sentence " We intend to 
have a clear and simple record of whatever issue may 
arise between us and Great Britain," and wrote the 



Ixii INTROD UCTION. 

words " Leave out." He also similarly encircled the 
words "is surprised and grieved," and rendered the 
phrase "The President regrets." 

that Mr. Dallas did not protest against the proposed 
unofficial intercourse between the British Govern- 
ment and the missionaries of the insurgents. 

It is due, however, to Mr. Dallas to say, that our 
instructions had been given only to you and not to 
him, and that his loyalty and fidelity, too rare in these 
times, are appreciated. 

Intercourse of any kind with the so-called commis- 
sioners is liable to be construed as a recognition of 
the authority which appointed them. Such inter- 
course would be none the less hurtful to us for being 
called unofficial, and it might be even more injurious, 
because we should have no means of knowing what 
points might be resolved by it. Moreover, 

\^Page 4. 

After the phrase "missionaries of the insurgents" 
the Secretary had added, " as well as against the 
demand for explanations made by the British Govern- 
ment ;" but the President wrote " Leave out, because 
it does not appear that explanations were demanded." 

As the Secretary wrote the second sentence, it 
read : " It is due, however, to Mr. Dallas to say 
that our instructions had been given only to you, 
not to him, and that his loyalty and fidelity, too rare 
in these times among our representatives abroad, are 
confessed and appreciated." The President wrote 
" Leave out" against the words italicized. 



INTRODUCTION. Ixili 

In the last complete sentence on this page, also, 
the President substituted the word " hurtful " for 
" wrongful." 

unofficial intercourse is useless and meaningless if 
it is not expected to ripen into official intercourse 
and direct recognition. It is left doubtful, here, 
whether the proposed unofficial intercourse has yet 
actually begun. Your own antecedent instructions 
are deemed explicit enough and it is hoped that you 
have not misunderstood them. You will, in any 
event, desist from all intercourse whatever, unofficial 
as well as official, with the British Government, so 
lonor as it shall continue intercourse of either kind 
with the domestic enemies of this country. 

When intercourse shall have been arrested for this 
cause, you will communicate with this department 
and receive further directions. \P(^g(^ 5- 

After the words " domestic enemies of this coun- 
try" the Secretary had added ** confining yourself 
simply to a delivery of a copy of this paper to the 
Secretary of State." " Leave out," wrote the Presi- 
dent. 

" After doing this, you will communicate with 
this department," was the language of Mr. Seward. 
" When communication shall have been arrested for 
this cause, you will communicate with this depart- 
ment," was the President's emendation. 

Lord John Russell has informed us of an under- 
standing: between the British and French Govern- 



Ixiv INTRODUCTION. 

ments that they will act together In regard to our 
affairs. This communication, however, loses some- 
thing of its value from the circumstance that the 
communication was withheld until after knowledge 
of the fact had been acquired by us from other 
sources. We know, also, another fact that has not 
yet been officially communicated to us, namely, that 
other European States are apprised by France and 
England of their agreement, and are expected to con- 
cur with or follow them in whatever measures they 
adopt on the subject of recognition. The United 
States have been impartial and just in all their con- 
duct towards the several nations of Europe. They 
will not complain, however, of the combination now 
announced by the two leading powers, although they 
think they had a right to expect a more independent 
if not a more SjP'-'^S^ 6- 

friendly course from each of them. You will take 
no notice of that or any other alliance. Whenever 
the European governments shall see fit to commu- 
nicate directly with us, we shall be, as heretofore, 
frank and explicit in our reply. 

As to the blockade, you will say that, by our own 
laws, and the laws of nations, this Government has a 
clear right to suppress insurrection. An exclusion 
of commerce from national ports, which have been 
seized by the insurgents, in the equitable form of 
blockade, is a proper means to that end. You will 
not insist that our blockade is to be respected if it 
be not maintained by a competent force, but passing 
by that question as not now a practical, or at least 
an urgent one, you will add that the blockade is now 
and it will continue to be so maintained, and there- 
fore we expect it to be respected by Great Britain. 
You will add that we have. 

\_Page 7. 



INTRODUCTION. Ixv 

"As to the blockade," wrote the Secretary, "you 
will say that, by the laws of nature and the laws of 
nations, this Government has a clear right to sup- 
press insurrections." For the phrase "the laws of 
nature," the President wrote " our own laws." 

already revoked the exequatur of a Russian consul 
who had enlisted in the military service of the insur- 
gents, and we shall dismiss or demand the recall of 
every foreign agent, consular or diplomatic, who 
shall either disobey the Federal laws or disown the 
Federal authority. 

As to the recognition of the so-called Southern 
Confederacy it is not to be made a subject of tech- 
nical definition. It is, of course, direct recognition 
to publish an acknowledgment of the sovereignty 
and independence of a new power. It is direct 
recognition to receive its ambassadors, ministers, 
agents, or commissioners officially. A concession of 
belligerent rights is liable to be construed as a recog- 
nition of them. No one of these proceedings will 
pass unquestioned by the United States in this case. 

Hitherto recognition has been moved only on the 
assumption that the so-called Confederate States are 
de facto a self-sustaining power. Now, after long 
forbearance, designed to soothe discontent and avert 
the need of civil war, \P(^g^ 8. 

" No one of these proceedings," wrote the Secre- 
tary, "will be borne by the United States in this 
case." The President first substituted "unnoticed" 
for "borne," and then corrected his own word by 
writing "will pass unquestioned." 



Ix V i IN TROD UC TION. 

the land and naval forces of the United States have 
been put in motion to repress the insurrection. The 
true character of the pretended new State is at once 
revealed. It is seen to be a power existing in pro- 
nunciamento only. It has never won a field. It 
has obtained no forts that were not virtually betrayed 
into its hands or seized in breach of trust. It com- 
mands not a single port on the coast nor any high- 
way out from its pretended Capital by land. Under 
these circumstances, Great Britain is called upon to 
intervene and give it body and independence by resist- 
ing our measures of suppression. British recogni- 
tion would be British inter- \P<^S^ 9- 



vention to create, within our territory, a hostile 
State by overthrowing this Republic itself. -5^ * * 
As to the treatment of privateers in the insurgent 
service you will say that this is a question exclusively 
our own. We treat them as pirates. They are our 
own citizens, or persons employed by our citizens, 
preying on the commerce of our country. If Great 
Britain shall choose to recognize them as lawful bel- 
ligerents, and give them shelter from our pursuit and 
punishment, the laws of nations afford an adequate 
and proper remedy. \P^S^ lo- 

After the words " overthrowing this Republic 
itself," Mr. Seward added this sentence, which Lin- 
coln eliminated : " When this act of intervention 
is distinctly performed, we, from that hour, shall 
cease to be friends, and {become once 77iorc as we 
have twice before beeii), be forced to be enemies 
of Great Britain." Here the President seems at 
first to have decided to strike out only the words 



IN TROD UCTION. Ix vi i 

that are italicized, but subsequently he erased the 
entire sentence. 

After the last sentence on the page, following the 
words "proper remedy," the Secretary had written 
" and we shall avail ourselves of it. And while you 
need not say this in advance, be sure that you say 
nothing inconsistent with it." " Out'' wrote the 
President. 



Happily, however, her Britannic Majesty's Gov- 
ernment can avoid all these difficulties. It invited 
us, in 1856, to accede to the declaration of the Con- 
gress of Paris, of which body Great Britain was 
herself a member, abolishing privateering every- 
where, in all cases and forever. You already have 
our authority to propose to her our accession to 
that declaration. If she refuse to receive it, it can 
only be because she is willing to become the patron 
of privateering when aimed at our devastation. 

These positions are not elaborately defended now, 
because to vindicate them would imply a possibility 
of our waiving them. * * * 

We are not insensible of the grave importance of 
this occasion. We see how, upon the result of the 
debate in which we are engaged, a war may 

\Page 1 1. 



After the second paragraph on this page the Pres- 
ident wrote : " Drop all from this line to the end. 
and in lieu of it write ' This paper is for your own 
guidance only, and not to be read or shown to any 



one.' " 



Ixviii INTRODUCTION. 

ensue between the United States and one, two, or 
even more, European nations. War in any case is as 
exceptionable from the habits, as it is revolting from 
the sentiments, of the American people. But if it 
come, it will be fully seen that it results from the 
action of Great Britain, not our own ; that Great 
Britain will have decided to fraternize with our 
domestic enemy either without waiting to hear, from 
you, our remonstrances and our warnings, or after 
having heard them. War in defence of national life 
is not immoral, and war in defence of independence 
is an inevitable part of the discipline of nations. 

The dispute will be between the European and 
the American branches of the British race. All 
who belong to that race will especially deprecate it, 
as they ought. It may well be believed that men 
of every race and kindred will deplore it. A war not 
unlike it, between the same parties, occurred at the 
close of the last century. Europe atoned by forty 
years of suffering for the error that Great Britain 
committed in provoking that contest. [^^<^^ 12. 

For our ''remonstrances and wrongs," on this 
page, the President substituted " our remonstrances 
and our warnings." 

" Europe atoned by forty years of suffering for 
the crime." wrote Mr. Seward ; " forty years of suf- 
fering for the error," wrote Lincoln. 

If that nation shall now repeat the same great error, 
the social convulsions which will follow may not be 
so long, but they will be more general. When they 
shall have ceased it will, we think, be seen, what- 
ever may have been the fortunes of other nations, 
that it is not the United States that will have come 



INTRODUCTION. Ixlx 

out of them with its precious constitution altered, 
or its honestly obtained dominion in any way 
abridged. Great Britain has but to wait a few 
months and all her present inconveniences will cease 
with all our own troubles. If she take a different 
course, she will calculate for herself the ultimate as 
well as the immediate consequences, and will con- 
sider what position she will hold when she shall have 
forever lost the sympathies and the affections of the 
only nation on whose sympathies and affections she 
has a natural claim. In making that calculation, 
she will do well to remember that, in the contro- 
versy she proposes to open, we shall be actuated by 
neither pride, nor passion, nor cupidity, nor am- 
bition, but we shall stand simply on the principle 
of self-preservation, and that our cause will involve 
the independence of nations, and the rights of human 
nature. 

I am, sir, respectfully, your obedient servant, 

William H. Seward. 

Charles Francis Adams, Esq., &c., &c., &c. 

\Page 13. 

The subtile corrections on this page have already 
been noted. 



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[13] 




Lieut.-General. 



I. 

Ulysses S. Grant. 

New York, Oct. 26, 1885. 
Dear Sir : 

In the first draft of his book, Gen. Grant had fixed 
upon quite a large number of anecdotes which were 
afterward omitted. Among the number I find the 
following, for which, as will be seen, he was indebted 
to President Lincoln. 

Respectfully, 

F. D. GRANT. 
Allen Thorndike Rice, Esq. 



I. 

JUST after receiving my commission as lieu- 
tenant-general, the President called me aside 
to speak to me privately. After a brief reference 
to the military situation, he said he thought he could 
illustrate what he wanted to say by a story, which 
he related as follows : " At one time there was a 
great war among the animals, and one side had great 
difficulty in getting a commander who had sufficient 



2 JiEMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

confidence In himself. Finally, they found a monkey, 
by the name of Jocko, who said that he thought 
he could command their army if his tail could be 
made a little longer. So they got more tail and 
spliced it on to his caudal appendage. He looked 
at it admiringly, and then thought he ought to have 
a little more still. This was added, and again he 
called for more. The splicing process was repeated 
many times, until they had coiled Jocko's tail around 
the room, filling all the space. Still he called for 
more tall, and, there being no other place to coil 
it, they began wrapping it around his shoulders. He 
continued his call for more, and they kept on wind- 
ing the additional tail about him until its weight 
broke him down." 

I saw the point, and, rising from my chair, re- 
plied : " Mr. President, I will not call for more as- 
sistance unless I find it impossible to do with what 
I already have." 

II. 

Upon one occasion, when the President was at my 
head-quarters at City Point, I took him to see the 
work that had been done on the Dutch Gap Canal. 
After taking him around and showing him all the 
points of interest, explaining how, in blowing up one 
portion of the work that was being excavated, the 
explosion had thrown the material back into, and 



BY ULYSSES S. GRANT. 3 

filled Up, a part already completed, he turned to me 
and said : " Grant, do you know what this reminds 
me of? Out in Springfield, Illinois, there was a 

blacksmith named . One day, when he did not 

have much to do, he took a piece of soft iron that 
had been in his shop for some time, and for which he 
had no special use, and, starting up his fire, began to 
heat it. When he got it hot he carried it to the anvil 
and began to hammer it, rather thinking he would 
weld it into an agricultural implement. He pounded 
av/ay for some time until he got it fashioned into 
some shape, when he discovered that the iron would 
not hold out to complete the implement he had in 
mind. He then put it back into the forge, heated it 
up again, and recommenced hammering, with an ill- 
defined notion that he would make a claw hammer, 
but after a time he came to the conclusion that there 
was more iron there than was needed to form a 
hammer. Again he heated it, and thought he would 
make an axe. After hammering and welding it into 
shape, knocking the oxydized iron off in flakes, he 
concluded there was not enoueh of the iron left to 
make an axe that would be of any use. He was now 
getting tired and a little disgusted at the result of 
his various essays. So he filled his forge full of coal, 
and, after placing the iron in the center of the heap, 
took the bellows and worked up a tremendous blast, 
bringing the iron to a white heat. Then with his 



4 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

tonofs he lifted It from the bed of coals, and thrust- 
ing it Into a tub of water near by, exclaimed with an 
oath, ' Well, If I can't make anything else of you, I 
will make a fizzle, anyhow.' " 

I replied that I was afraid that was about what 
we had done with the Dutch Gap Canal. 

ULYSSES S. GRANT. 



II. 

Elihu B. Washburne. 

MR. LINCOLN was nearly eight years my 
senior, and settled in Illinois ten years before 
I did. We first find him in the State splitting rails 
with Thomas Hanks, in Macon County, in 1830. Not 
long afterward he made his way to New Salem, an 
unimportant and insignificant village on the Sanga- 
mon River, in the northern part of Sangamon 
County, fourteen miles from Springfield. In 1839 
a new county was laid off, named " Menard," in honor 
of the first lieutenant-governor of the State, a French 
Canadian, an early settler of the State and a man 
whose memory is held in reverence by the people of 
Illinois, for his enterprise, benevolence and the ad- 
mirable personal traits which adorned his character. 
A distinguished and wealthy citizen of St, Louis, 
allied to him by marriage, Mr. Charles Pierre Chou- 
teau, is now erecting a monument to him, to be 
placed in the State-house grounds at Springfield. 
The settlement of New Salem, now immortalized 
as the early home of Lincoln, fell within the new 
county of " Menard." Remaining there " as a sort 



6 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

of clerk in a store," to use his own language, he 
then went into the Black Hawk war and was elected 
captain of a company of mounted volunteers. In 
one of the great debates between Lincoln and Doug- 
las, at Ottawa, in 1858, he, in a somewhat patron- 
izing manner and in a spirit of badinage, spoke of 
having known Lincoln for " twenty-four years " and 
when a " flourishing grocery-keeper " at New Salem. 
The occasion was too good a one not to furnish 
a repartee, and the people insisted that while Lin- 
coln denied that he had been a flourishing " grocery- 
keeper" as stated, yet added that, if he had been, it 
was "certain that his friend, Judge Douglas, w^ould 
have been his best customer." The Black Hawk war 
over, Mr. Lincoln returned to New Salem to eke out 
a scanty existence by doing small jobs of surveying 
and by drawing up deeds and legal instruments for 
his neighbors. In 1834, still living in New Salem, 
he was one of nine members elected from Saneamon 
County to the lower house of the Legislature. 

I landed at Galena by a Mississippi River steam- 
boat, on the first day of April, 1840, ten years after 
Hanks and Lincoln were splitting rails in Macon 
County. 

The country was then fairly entered on that mar- 
velous Presidential campaign between Van Buren 
and Harrison, by far the most exciting election the 
country has ever seen, and which, in my judgment, 



BY EUIIU B. WASHBURNE. 'J 

will never have a parallel, should the country have 
an existence for a thousand years. Illinois was one 
of the seven States that voted for Van Buren, but 
the Whiofs contested the election with o-reat zeal and 
most desperate energy. Galena, theretofore better 
known as the Fevre River Lead Mines, still held its 
importance as the center of the lead mining region, 
and was regarded as one of the principal towns in 
the State in point of population, wealth and enter- 
prise. But the bulk of population of the State at 
that time, as well as the weight of political influence, 
was south of Springfield. 

Mr. Lincoln was first elected to the lower branch of 
the Legislature (then sitting at Vandalia), from San- 
gamon County, in 1834; and that was his first appear- 
ance in public life. He was re-elected in 1836, 1838 
and 1840, having served in all four terms — eight years. 
He then peremptorily declined a further election. 

Before his election to the Legislature, Mr. Lincoln 
had read law in a fugitive way at New Salem, but 
arriving at Vandalia, as a member of the Legislature, 
a new field was open to him in the State law library, 
as well as in the miscellaneous library at the capital. 
He then devoted himself most diligently not only to 
the study of law, but to miscellaneous readlno-. He 
always read understandlngly, and there was no prin- 
ciple of law but what he mastered, and such was the 
way in which he always impressed his miscellaneous 



8 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

readings on his mind, that people in his later life 
were amazed at his wonderful familiarity with books, 
even those so little known by the great mass of 
readers. The seat of orovernment of Illinois havino- 
been removed from Vandalia to Springfield, in 1839, 
the latter place then became the center of political 
influence in the State. 

Mr. Lincoln was not particularly distinguished in 
his legislative service. He participated in the dis- 
cussion of the ordinary subjects of legislation, and 
was regarded as a man of good sense, and a wise and 
practical legislator. His uniform fairness was pro- 
verbial. But he never gave any special evidence of 
that masterly ability for which he was afterward 
distinguished, and which stamped him, as by com- 
mon consent, the foremost man of all the century. 
He was a prominent Whig in politics, and took a 
leading part in all political discussions. There were 
many men of both political parties in the lower house 
of Legislature during the service of Mr. Lincoln, 
who became afterward distinguished in the political 
history of the State, and among them might be 
mentioned Orlando B. Ficklin, John T. Stuart, 
William A. Richardson, John A. McClernand, 
Edward D. Baker, Lewis W. Ross, Samuel D. 
Marshall, Robert Smith, William H. Bissell, and 
John J. Hardin, all subsequently members of Con- 
gress, and James Semple, James Shields, and Lyman 



BY ELIHU B. WASHBURNE. g 

Trumbull, United States Senators. There were 
also many men of talent and local reputation, who 
held an honorable place in the public estimation 
and made their mark in the history of the State. 
Springfield was the political center for the Whigs of 
Illinois in 1840. 

Lincoln had already acquired a high reputation as 
a popular speaker, and he was put on the Harrison 
electoral ticket with the understanding he should 
canvass the State. 

Edward D. Baker was also entered as a campaign 
orator, and wherever he spoke he carried his audi- 
ences captive by the power of his eloquence and the 
strength of his arguments. He was one of the most 
effective stump speakers I ever listened to. It was 
his wonderful eloquence and his power as a stump 
speaker that elected him to Congress from Illinois in 
a district to which he did not beloncr, and made him 
a United States Senator from Oregon when he was a 
citizen of California. 

John T. Stuart was already known by his success- 
ful canvass with Douglas, in 1838, as an able speaker 
and a popular man ; and John J. Hardin, of Jackson- 
ville, (killed at Buena Vista) was widely known as 
a popular and successful orator. These Springfield 
Whigs led off in canvassing the State for Harrison 
in 1840. 

Lincoln and Baker were assigned to the " Wabash 



lO REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Country," where, as Baker once told me, they would 
make speeches one day and shake with the ague the 
next. It is hard to realize at this day what it was to 
make a political canvass in Illinois half a century 
gone by. There were no railroads and but few stage 
lines. The speakers were obliged to travel on horse- 
back, carrying their saddle-bags filled with " hickory" 
shirts and woolen socks. They were frequently 
obliged to travel long distances, through swamps 
and over prairies, to meet their appointments. The 
accommodations were invariably wretched, and no 
matter how tired, jaded and worn the speaker might 
be, he was obliged to respond to the call of th-e wait- 
ing and eager audiences. 

In 1840, Stephen T. Logan, then a resident of 
Springfield, was one of the best known and most 
prominent men in the State, Though a Whig, he 
was not so much a politician as a lawyer. In 1841, 
he and Mr. Lincoln formed a law partnership which 
continued until 1843, ^^^^ there was never a stronger 
law firm in the State. Like Lincoln, Logan was a 
Kentuckian, and a self-made man. Though a nat- 
ural born lawyer, he had yet studied profoundly the 
principles of the common law. He was elected a 
circuit judge in 1835, and held the office until 1837. 
He displayed extraordinary qualities as a nisi prius 
judge. In 1842 he consented to serve in the lower 
branch of the Legislature from Sangamon County. 



BY ELIHU B. WASHBURNE. H 

He had even more simplicity of character, and was 
more careless in his dress than Mr. Lincoln. I shall 
never foreet the first time I ever saw him. It was 
in the Hall of the House of Representatives, on 
February lo, 1843, and when he was a member of 
that body. He had a reputation at that time as a 
man of ability and a lawyer second to no man in the 
State. I was curious to see the man of whom I had 
heard so much, and I shall never forget the impres- 
sion he made on me. He was a small, thin man, 
with a little wrinkled and weazened face, set off by 
an immense head of hair, which might be called 
''frowzy." He was dressed in linsey-woolsey, and 
wore very heavy shoes. His shirt was of unbleached 
cotton, and unstarched, and he never encumbered 
himself with a cravat or other neck wear. His voice 
was shrill, sharp and unpleasant, and he had not a 
single grace of oratory — but yet, when he spoke, he 
always had interested and attentive listeners. Un- 
derneath this curious and grotesque exterior there 
was a gigantic intellect. When he addressed himself 
to a jury or to a question of law before the courts, 
or made a speech in the Legislature or at the hust- 
ings, people looked upon him and listened with 
amazement. His last appearance in any public posi- 
tion was as a delegate to the " Peace Convention " at 
Washington, in the spring of 1861. In his later 
years he lived the life of a retired gentleman in his 



12 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

beautiful home in the environs of Springfield. His 
memory has been honored by placing his portrait, 
one of the most admirable ever painted by Healy, 
in the magnificent room of the Suprem.e Court at 
Springfield. 

I never met Mr, Lincoln till the first time I attended 
the Supreme Court at Springfield, in the winter of 
1843 ^'^d 1844. He had already achieved a certain 
reputation as a public speaker, and was rapidly gain- 
ing distinction as a lawyer. He had already become 
widely known as a Whig politician, and his advice 
and counsel were much sought for by members of the 
party all over the State. One of the great features 
in Illinois, nearly half a century gone by, was the meet- 
ing of the Supreme Court of the State. There was 
but one term of the court a year, and that was held 
first at Vandalia and then at Springfield. The law- 
yers from every part of the State had to follow their 
cases there for final adjudication, and they gathered 
there from all the principal towns of the State. The 
occasion served as a reunion of a large number of the 
ablest men in the State. Many of them had been 
draecred for hundreds of miles over horrible roads in 
stage-coaches or by private conveyance. For many 
years I traveled from Galena, one of the most remote 
parts of the State, to Springfield, in a stage-coach, oc- 
cupying usually three days and four nights, traveling 
incessantly, and arriving at the end of the journey 



BY ELIHU B. WASHBURNE. I 3 

more dead than alive. The Supreme Court Hbrary 
was in the court-room, and there the lawyers would 
gather to look up their authorities and prepare their 
cases. In the evening it was a sort of rendezvous 
for general conversation, and I hardly ever knew of 
an evening to pass without Mr. Lincoln putting in 
his appearance. He was a man of the most social 
disposition and was never so happy as when sur- 
rounded by congenial friends. His penchant for 
story-telling is well known, and he was more happy 
in that line than any man I ever knew. But many 
stories have been invented and attributed to him that 
he never heard of. Never shall I forget him as he 
appeared almost every evening in the court-room, 
sitting in a cane-bottom chair leaning up against the 
partition, his feet on a round of the chair, and sur- 
rounded by many listeners. But there was one thing, 
he never pressed his stories on unwilling ears nor 
endeavored to absorb all attention to himself. But 
his anecdotes were all so droll, so original, so appro- 
priate and so illustrative of passing incidents that 
one never wearied. He never repeated a story or an 
anecdote, nor vexed the dull ears of a drowsy man 
by thrice-told tales ; and he enjoyed a good story 
from another as much as any person. 

There were many good story-tellers in that group 
of lawyers that assembled evenings in that Supreme 
Court-room, and among them was the Hon. Thomp- 



14 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

son Campbell, Secretary of State under Gov. Ford 
from 1843 to 1846. Mr. Campbell was a brilliant 
man and a celebrated wit. Though differing in poli- 
tics, until the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, he 
and Mr. Lincoln were strong personal friends, and 
many of his stories, like those of Mr. Lincoln, have 
gone into the traditions of the State. They were 
never so happy as when together and listening to the 
stories of each other. Mr. Campbell was elected to 
Congress from the Galena district in 1850, and served 
one term. In 1853 President Pierce appointed him 
a judge of the United States Land Court of Cali- 
fornia. 

Mr. Lincoln was universally popular with his as- 
sociates. Of an even temper, he had a simplicity 
and charm of manner which took hold, at once, on 
all persons with whom he came in contact. He was 
of the most amiable disposition, and not given to 
speak unkindly of any person, but quick to discover 
any weak points that person might have. He was 
always the center of attraction in the court-room at 
the evening gatherings, and all felt there was a great 
void when, for any reason, he was kept away. 

The associates of Mr. Lincoln at the bar, at this 
time, were, most of them, men of ability, who gave 
promise of future distinction both at the bar and in 
the field of politics. The lawyers of that day were 
brought much closer together than they ever have 



BY ELIHU B. IVASHBURNE. I 5 

been since, and the ''esprit dti corps'' was much 
more marked. Coming from long distances and 
suffering great privations in their journeys, they 
usually remained a considerable time in attendance 
upon the court. 

Among the noted lawyers at this time, the friends 
and associates of Mr. Lincoln, who subsequently 
reached high political distinction, were John J. 
Hardin, falling bravely at the head of his regiment 
at Buena Vista; Lyman Trumbull, for eighteen 
years United States Senator from Illinois ; James 
A. McDougall, Attorney-General of Illinois, and 
subsequently member of Congress and United 
States Senator from California ; Stephen A. Doug- 
las, Edward D. Baker, Thompson Campbell, Joseph 
Gillespie, O. B. Ficklin, Archibald Williams, James 
Shields, Isaac N. Arnold (who was to become Mr. 
Lincoln's biographer); Norman H. Purple, O. H. 
Browning, subsequently United States Senator and 
Secretary of the Interior, Judge Thomas Drum- 
mond, of the United States Circuit Court, and many 
others, all the contemporaries of Mr. Lincoln, and 
always holding with him the most cordial and 
friendly relations. 

In the Presidential campaign of 1844, Mr. Lincoln 
canvassed the State very thoroughly for Mr. Clay, 
and added much to his already well-established repu- 
tation as a stump speaker. His reputation also as a 



l6 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

lawyer had steadily increased. In August, 1846, he 
was elected to Congress as a Whig from the Spring- 
field district. 

Ceasing to attend the courts at Springfield, I saw 
but little of Mr. Lincoln for a few years. We met 
at the celebrated River and Harbor Convention at 
Chicago, held July 5, 6 and 7, 1847. He was simply 
a looker on, and took no leading part in the conven- 
tion. His dress and personal appearance on that 
occasion could not well be forcrotten. It was then 
for the first time I heard him called " Old Abe." 
Old Abe, as applied to him, seems strange enough, 
as he was then a young man, only thirty-six years of 
age. One afternoon, several of us sat on the side- 
walk under the balcony in front of the Sherman 
House, and among the number the accomplished 
scholar and unrivaled orator, Lisle Smith. He sud- 
denly interrupted the conversation by exclaiming, 
" There is Lincoln on the other side of the street. 
Just look at 'Old Abe,'" and from that time we all 
called him " Old Abe." No one who saw him can 
forget his personal appearance at that time. Tall, 
angular and awkward, he had on a short-waisted, 
thin swallow-tail coat, a short vest of same material, 
thin pantaloons, scarcely coming down to his ankles, 
a straw hat and a pair of brogans with woolen socks. 

Mr. Lincoln was always a great favorite with 
young men, particularly with the younger members 



BY ELIHU B. WASHBURNE. 



17 



of the bar. It was a popularity not run after, but 
which followed. He never used the arts of the 
demagogue to ingratiate himself with any person. 
Beneath his ungainly exterior he wore a golden 
heart. He was ever ready to do an act of kindness 
whenever in his power, particularly to the poor and 
lowly. 

Mr. Lincoln took his seat in Congress on the first 
Monday, in December, 1847. ^ was in attendance 
on the Supreme Court of the United States at 
Washington that winter, and as he was the only 
member of Congress from the State who was in har- 
mony with my own political sentiments, I saw much 
of him and passed a good deal of time In his room. 
He belonged to a mess that boarded at Mrs. Spriggs, 
in "Duff Green's Row" on Capitol Hill. At the 
first session, the mess was composed of John Blanch- 
ard, John Dickey, A. R. Mcllvaine, James Pollock, 
John Strohm, of Pennsylvania; Elisha Embree, of 
Indiana; Joshua R. Giddings, of Ohio; A. Lincoln, 
of Illinois, and P. W. Tompkins, of Mississippi. 
The same members composed the mess at Mrs. 
Spriggs' the short session, with the exception of 
Judge Embree and Mr. Tompkins. Without excep- 
tion, these gentlemen are all dead. He sat in the 
old hall of the House of Representatives, and for 
the long session was so unfortunate as to draw one 
of the most undesirable seats in the hall. He par- 



1 8 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

ticipated but little in the active business of the 
House, and made the personal acquaintance of but 
few members. He was attentive and conscientious 
in the discharge of his duties, and followed the 
course of legislation closely. When he took his seat 
in the House, the campaign of 1848 for President 
was just opening. Out of the small number of 
Whie members of Conorress who were favorable to 
the nomination of General Taylor by the Whig Con- 
vention, he was one of the most ardent and out- 
spoken. The following letter addressed to me on 
the subject will indicate the warmth of his support 
of General Taylor's nomination : 

Washington, April 30, 1848. - 
Dear Washburne : 

I have this moment received your very short note 
asking me if old Taylor is to be used up, and who 
will be the nominee. My hope of Taylor's nomina- 
tion is as high — a little higher than when you left. 
Still the case is by no means out of doubt. Mr. 
Clay's letter has not advanced his interests any here. 
Several who were against Taylor, but not for any- 
body particularly before, are since taking ground, 
some for Scott and some for McLean. Who will be 
nominated, neither I nor any one else can tell. Now, 
let me pray to you in turn. My prayer is, that you 
let nothing discourage or baffle you, but that in spite 



BY ELIHU B. IVASHBURNE. I9 

of every difficulty you send us a good Taylor dele- 
gate from your circuit. Make Baker, who is now 
with you I suppose, help about it. He is a good 
hand to raise a breeze. General Ashley, in the Sen- 
ate from Arkansas, died yesterday. Nothing else 
new, beyond what you see in the papers. 

Yours truly, 

A. LINCOLN. 

I was again in Washington part of the winter of 
1849 (after the election of General Taylor), and saw 
much of Mr. Lincoln. A small number of mutual 
friends — including Mr. Lincoln — made up a party to 
attend the inauguration ball together. It was by far 
the most brilliant inaugfuratlon ball ever oriven. Of 
course Mr. Lincoln had never seen anything of the 
kind before. One of the most modest and unpre- 
tending persons present — he could not have dreamed 
that like honors were to come to him, almost within 
a little more than a decade. He was greatly Inter- 
ested in all that was to be seen, and we did not take 
our departure until three or four o'clock in the morn- 
ing. When we went to the cloak and hat room, Mr. 
Lincoln had no trouble in finding his short cloak, 
which little more than covered his shoulders, but, 
after a long search, was unable to find his hat. After 
an hour he gave up all idea of finding It. Taking 
his cloak on his arm, he walked out into Judiciary 



20 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Square, deliberately adjusting it on his shoulders, and 
started off bareheaded for his lodgings. It would be 
hard to forget the siorht of that tall and slim man, 
with his short cloak thrown over his shoulders, start- 
ing for his long walk home on Capitol Hill, at four 
o'clock in the morning, without any hat on. 

And this incident is akin to one related to me by 
the librarian of the Supreme Court of the United 
States. Mr. Lincoln came to the library one day for 
the purpose of procuring some law books which he 
wanted to take to his room for examination. Get- 
ting together all the books he wanted, he placed 
them in a pile on a table. Taking a large bandana 
handkerchief from his pocket, he tied them up, and 
putting a stick w^hich he had brought with him 
through a knot he had made in the handkerchief, 
adjusting the package of books to his stick he shoul- 
dered it, and marched off from the library to his 
room. In a few days he returned the books in the 
same way. 

Mr. Lincoln declined to run for Congress for a 
second term, 1848. His old partner and friend, 
Judge Stephen T. Logan, was the Whig candidate, 
and, to the amazement of every one, was defeated 
by a Democrat, Colonel Thomas L. Harris, of " Me- 
nard " County. 

From 1849, <^" returning from Congress, until 
1854, he practiced law more assiduously than ever 



J3V ELIHU B. WASHBURNE, 21 

before. In respect to that period of his life he once 
wrote to a friend : 

" I was losing interest in politics when the repeal 
of the Missouri Compromise aroused me again." 

There was a great upturning in the political situa- 
tion in Illinois, brought about by the repeal of the 
Missouri Compromise in 1854. In the fall of that 
year an election was to be held in Illinois for mem- 
bers of Conofress and for members of the Leg^islature 
which was to elect a successor to General Shields, 
who had committed what was to the people of Illi- 
nois, the unpardonable sin of voting for the repeal of 
the Missouri Compromise. There was something in 
that legislation which was particularly revolting to 
Mr. Lincoln, as it outraged all his ideas of political 
honesty and fair dealing. 

There was an exciting canvass in the State, and 
Mr. Lincoln entered into It with great spirit, and ac- 
complished great results by his powerful speeches. 
From his standino- In the State and from the ereat 
service he had rendered in the campaign, it was 
agreed that if the Republicans and anti-Nebraska 
men should carry the Legislature, Mr. Lincoln would 
succeed General Shields. I know that he himself 
expected it. There is a long and painful history of 
that Senatorial contest yet to be written, and when 
the whole truth is disclosed It will throw a flood of 
new light on the character of Mr. Lincoln, and will 



2 2 REMINISCEI^CES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

add new luster to his greatness, his generosity, his 
magnanimity and his patriotism. There is no event 
in Mr. Lincoln's entire political career that brought 
to him so much disappointment and chagrin as his 
defeat for United States Senator in 1855, but he 
accepted the situation uncomplainingly, and never 
indulged in reproaches or criticism upon any one ; 
but, on the other hand, he always formed excuses for 
those who had been charged wnth not acting in good 
faith toward him and to those with whom he was 
associated. He never forgot the obligations he was 
under to those who had faithfully stood by him in 
his contest, through good and evil report. 

Allied to him by the strongest ties of personal and 
political friendship, I did all in my power to secure 
for him, which I did, the support of the members 
of the Legislature from my Congressional District. 
The day after the election for Senator he addressed 
to me a long letter, several pages of letter-paper, 
giving a detailed account of the contest and the rea- 
sons of his action in persuading his friends to vote 
for and elect Judge Trumbull, and expressing the 
opinion that I would have acted in the same way if 
I had been in his place. He then says: 

" I regret my defeat moderately, but am not ner- 
vous about it. * -'^ ^ Perhaps it is as well for 
our grand cause that Trumbull is elected." 

He then closes his letter as follows : 



BV ELIHU B. WASHBURNE. 23 

" With my grateful acknowledgments for the kind, 
active, and continual interest you have taken for me 
in this matter, allow me to subscribe myself, 

" Yours, forever, 

"A. LINCOLN." 

On the last day of the balloting in the Legislature, 
it seemed inevitable that a Nebraska Democrat would 
be elected United States Senator. Judge Trumbull 
had the votes of five anti-Nebraska Democrats. And 
of this crisis Mr. Lincoln writes to me : 

" So I determined to strike at once, and accord- 
ingly advising my friends to go for him, which they 
did, and elected him on that, the loth ballot." 

Though the failure to elect Mr. Lincoln brought 
grief to many hearts, yet the election of Judge 
Trumbull was well received by the entire anti- 
Nebraska party in the State. He proved himself an 
able, true and loyal Senator, rendered great services 
to the Union cause, and proved himself a worthy 
representative of a great, loyal and patriotic State. 

Notwithstandinor the g-reat satisfaction with which 
Judge Trumbull's election had been received, there 
was a deep and profound feeling among the old 
Whigs, the Republicans and many anti-Nebraska 
Democrats, that Mr. Lincoln should have had the 
position, and that he had not been fairly treated. 
But never a complaint or a suggestion of that 



24 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

kind escaped the lips of Mr. Lincoln. Cheerily and 
bravely and contentedly he went back to his law 
office, and business poured in upon him more than 
ever. 

In stepping one side and securing the election of 
Judge Trumbull, he " builded better than he knew." 
Had Mr. Lincoln been elected Senator at that time, 
he would never have had the canvass with Judge 
Douglas in 1858, never been elected President in 
i860, to leave a name that will never die. 

From 1855 to 1858, Mr. Lincoln was absorbed in 
the practice of his profession, though he took an 
active part in the canvass of 1856, when the gallant 
Colonel Bissell was elected Governor. But what 
was somewhat remarkable, in all this time, without 
the least personal effort, and without any resort to 
the usual devices of politicians, Mr. Lincoln's popu- 
larity continued to increase in every portion of the 
State. 

In the fall of 1858, there was to be an election 
of a Legislature which would choose a successor 
to Judge Douglas, whose term of service was to 
expire March 3, 1859. The Republican party by 
this time, had become completely organized and 
solidified, and in Illinois the Republican and Dem- 
ocratic parties squarely confronted each other. 
Everywhere, by common consent, no Republican 
candidate for Senator was spoken of except Mr. 



BY ELIHU B. WASHBURNE. 25 

Lincoln. In the Republican State Convention in 
the summer of 1858, a resolution was unanimously 
passed designating Mr. Lincoln as the unanimous 
choice of the Republicans of the State, as the candi- 
date for United States Senator, to succeed Judge 
Douglas, That action is without precedent in the 
State, and shows the deep hold Mr. Lincoln had on 
his party. 

Without being designated by any authorized body 
of Democrats, yet by common consent of the party. 
Judge Douglas became the candidate of the Demo- 
cratic party. No other candidates were mentioned 
on either side, either directly or indirectly. 

The seven joint discussions which the candidates 
had in different parts of the State have become a 
part of the political history of the countr)^ It was 
a battle of the giants. The parties were rallied, as 
one man, to the enthusiastic support of their respec- 
tive candidates, and it is hard for any one not in the 
State at the time to measure the excitement which 
everywhere prevailed. There was little talk about 
Republicanism and Democracy, but it was all " Lin- 
coln and Douglas," or " Douglas and Lincoln." I 
attended only one of these joint discussions. It was 
at Freeport, in my Congressional District, which 
was the bulwark of Republicanism in the State. 
Two years later it gave Mr. Lincoln a majority for 
President of nearly fourteen thousand, and my own 



26 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

majority for member of Congress was about the 
same. The Freeport discussion was held in August. 
The day was bright, but the wind sweeping down 
the prairies gave us a chilly afternoon for an out-of- 
door gathering. In company with a large number 
of Galena people, we reached Freeport by train, 
about ten o'clock In the morning. Mr. Lincoln had 
come In from the south the same morning, and we 
found him at the Brewster House, which was a 
sort of rallying-point for the Republicans. He had 
stood his campaign well, and was In splendid con- 
dition. He was surrounded all the forenoon by 
sturdy Republicans, who had come long distances, 
not only to hear him speak, but to see him, and it 
was esteemed the greatest privilege to shake hands 
with " Honest Old Abe." He had a kind word or 
some droll remark for every one, and it is safe to 
say that no one who spoke to him that day will ever 
have the Interview effaced from memory. The 
meeting was held on a vacant piece of ground, not 
far from the center of the town. The crowd was 
immense and the enthusiasm great. Each party 
tried to outdo the other in the applause for its 
own candidate. The speaking commenced, but the 
chilly air dampened the ardor of the audience. Mr. 
Lincoln spoke deliberately, and apparently under a 
deep sense of the responsibility which rested upon 
him. The questions he propounded to Mr. Douglas 



BY ELIHU B. WASHBURNE. 2/ 

he had put in writing (and the answers to which 
sounded the poHtical death-knell of Mr. Douglas) ; 
he read slowly, and with great distinctness. The 
speech of Mr. Douglas was not up to his usual 
standard. He was evidently embarrassed by the 
questions, and floundered in his replies. The crowd 
was large, the wind was chilly, and there was neces- 
sarily much " noise and confusion," and the audience 
did not take in the vast importance of the debate. 
On the whole, it may be said that neither party was 
fully satisfied with the speeches, and the meeting 
broke up without any display of enthusiasm. 

It is not my purpose in this essay to follow the 
incidents of the Presidential campaign of i860. The 
great event in Illinois was the monster Republican 
mass meeting held at Springfield during the canvass. 
It was a meeting for the whole State, and more in 
the nature of a personal ovation to Mr. Lincoln than 
merely a political gathering. It was one of the most 
enormous and impressive gatherings I had ever wit- 
nessed. 

Mr. Lincoln, surrounded by some intimate friends, 
sat on the balcony of his humble home. It took 
hours for all the delegations to file before him, and 
there v/as no token of enthusiasm wanting. He was 
deeply touched by the manifestations of personal and 
political friendship, and returned all his salutations 
in that off-hand and kindly manner which belonged 



28 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

to him. I know of no demonstration of a similar 
character that can compare with it except the review 
by Napoleon of his army for the invasion of Russia, 
about the same season of the year in 1812. 

Mr. Lincoln remained quietly at his own home in 
Springfield during the Presidential canvass of i860, 
but he watched narrowly all the incidents of the cam- 
paign. On the 26th of May he wrote me as follows : 

<<* % % J i^^yg your letters written since the 
nominations, but till now I have found no moment 
to say a word by way of answer. Of course I am 
glad that the nomination is well received by our 
friends, and I sincerely thank you for so informing 
me. So far as I can learn, the nominations take well 
everywhere, and if we get no back-set, it would seem 
as if they were going through. 

*' I hope you will write often ; and as you write 
more rapidly than I do, don't make your letters so 
short as mine. 

"Yours, very truly, 

"A. LINCOLN." 

Mr. Lincoln had his periods of anxiety and deep 
concern during the canvass. As chairman of the 
House Congressional (Republican) Committee, I was 
engaged at Washington during the campaign. On 
the 9th of September Mr. Lincoln wrote me as fol- 
lows from Springfield : 



BV ELIHU B. WASHBURNE. 29 

"Yours of the 5th was received last evening. I 
was right glad to get it. It contains the latest 
'posting' which I now have. It relieves me some 
from a little anxiety I had about Maine. Jo. Medill, 
on August 30th, wrote me that Colfax had a letter 
from Mr. Hamlin, saying we were in great danger of 
losing two members of Congress in Maine, and that 
your brother would not have exceeding six thousand 
majority for Governor. I addressed you at once, at 
Galena, asking for your latest information. As you 
are at Washington, that letter you will receive some 
time after the Maine election. 

" Yours, very truly, 

"A. LINCOLN." 

Though the election was over there came gloomy 
days for Mr. Lincoln, but he pondered well on the 
great problem before him. He had weighed well all 
the important questions which had arisen, and in 
him there was neither change nor shadow of turning. 
On the 13th day of December he wrote to me as 
follows : 

" Hon. E. B. Washburne : 

" My dear Sir : — Your long letter received. 
Prevent as far as possible any of our friends from 
demoralizing themselves and our cause by entertain- 
ing propositions for compromise of any sort on 
slavery extension. There is no possible compromise 



30 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

upon it, but which puts us under again, and all our 
work to do over again. Whether it be a Missouri 
line or Eli Thayer's Popular Sovereignty, it is all 
the same. — Let either be done, and immediately 
filibustering and extending slavery recommences. 
Oix,th^t^£p«J4j3jc4d firm as ,a>^hain of steel. 

" Yours, as ever, 

"A. LINCOLN." 

As the time of inauguration drew near there was 
an intense anxiety, not unmingled with trepidation, 
all over the loyal North as to how Mr. Lincoln 
might meet the approaching crisis. Many and 
varied were the speculations as to what course he 
would take. Looking at his character and life, many 
feared he had not fully comprehended the gravity 
of the situation. On the contrary, Mr. Lincoln had 
weighed the whole matter and fully determined in 
his own mind what course he would pursue. In 
December, i860, he wrote me the following letter : 

" Confidoitial. 

"Springfield, Dec. 21, i860. 
" Hon. E. B. Washburne : 

" My dear Sir : — Last night I received your letter, 
giving an account of your interview with General 
Scott, and for which I thank you. Please present 
my respects to the General and tell him confidentially 



BY ELIHU B. WASHBURNE. 3 1 

I shall be obliged to him to be as well prepared as 
he can to either hold, or retake, the forts, as the case 
may require, at and after the inauguration. 

" Yours, as ever, 

"A. LINCOLN." 

On the 13th of February, 1861, the two Houses 
of Congress met in joint session to count and declare 
the electoral vote. As in all times of great excite- 
ment, the air was filled with numberless and absurd 
rumors; a few were in fear that in some unforeseen 
way the ceremony of the count might be interrupted 
and the result not declared. And hence all Wash- 
ington was on the qzii vive. The joint meeting was 
to take place in the Hall of the House of Represent- 
atives at hioh noon. An immense throne filled the 
House end of the Capitol. All the gilded corridors 
leading to the Hall of the House were crowded, and 
the galleries packed. Beautiful and gorgeously 
dressed ladies entered the Hall, found their way into 
the cloak rooms, and many of them occupied the 
seats of the members, who gallantly surrendered 
them for the occasion. 

At twenty minutes after twelve, the door-keeper 
announced the Senate of the United States. The 
Senators entered, headed by their President, Hon. 
John C. Breckenridge, the members of the House 
rising to receive them. The Vice-President took his 



2>^ 



REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



seat on the right of the Speaker of the House of 
Representatives (the Hon. WilHam Pennington, of 
New Jersey). The joint convention of the two 
Houses was presided over by Mr. Breckenridge, who 
served out his term of Vice-President, till March 4, 
1 86 1. The Hon. Lyman Trumbull was appointed 
teller on the part of the Senate, and Messrs. Phelps, 
of Missouri, and Washburne, of Illinois, on the part 
of the House. The count proceeded without inci- 
dent, and the Vice-President announced the election 
of Lincoln and Hamlin. Mr. Sherman, of Ohio, then 
offered the ordinary resolution of notification to the 
President elect, by a committee of two members from 
the House, to be joined by one member from the 
Senate. Mr. Hindman, of Arkansas, one of the most 
violent and vindictive secessionists, insisted that the 
same committee " inform General Scott that there 
was no more use for his janizaries about the Capitol, 
the votes being counted and the result proclaimed." 
Mr. Grow, of Pennsylvania, responded that gentle- 
men seemed to trouble themselves a good deal about 
General Scott on all occasions. 

There was a certain feeling of relief among the 
loyal people of the country that Mr. Lincoln had 
been declared to be duly elected President, without 
the least pretense of illegality or irregularity. 

The second session of the Thirty-seventh Congress 
convened on the first Monday of December, 1861. 



BY ELIHU B. WASHBURNE. 33 

The Senators and Representatives of the rebellious 
States were no longer with us. The rumblings of 
treason, deep and significant, were everywhere heard. 
What was to be the outcome no one could tell. 
Anxiety and sadness sat enthroned in both Houses, 
but there was faith unshaken and courage unsub- 
dued. A state of things existed well calculated to 
shake the stoutest hearts. 

The loyal members of both Senate and House 
were closely organized to concert measures to meet 
the appalling emergencies that confronted them. It 
was determined that each House should appoint one 
of its members to form a committee to watch the cur- 
rent of events and discover as far as possible the in- 
tentions and acts of the rebels. This committee of 
" Public Safety," as it might be called, was a small 
one, only two members. Governor Grimes, the Sen- 
ator from Iowa, on the part of the Senate, and my- 
self on the part of the House. Clothed with full 
powers, we at once put ourselves in communication 
with General Scott, the head of the army, with head- 
quarters at Washington, and Chief of Police Ken- 
nedy, of New York City, a loyal and true man with 
a skill unsurpassed by a Fouche or a Vidocq. He 
at once sent us some of his most skillful and trusted 
detectives ; and earnestly, loyally, and courageously 
they went to work to unravel the plots and schemes 
set on foot to destroy us. And never was detective 



34 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

work more skillfully and faithfully done, not only in 
Washington, but in Baltimore and Richmond and 
Alexandria. They were all good rebels ; they had 
long beards and wore slouched hats and seedy coats ; 
they chewed tobacco and smoked cheap cigars ; 
damned the Yankees and drank bad whisky; and 
they obtained a great deal of valuable information 
in respect to hostile plans and schemes. 

As the 4th of March drew near, what occupied our 
most anxious thought was, how Mr. Lincoln could 
get to Washington and be inaugurated. Another 
committee was formed, one from each House, to look 
after that matter. Governor Seward was the Senate 
member, and I was put on on the part of the House, 
for the reason, perhaps, that I was from Illinois, a 
known personal friend of the President who had been 
in close correspondence with him all winter. Asso- 
ciating ourselves together, we came to the conclusion 
that everything must be done with the most profound 
secrecy. Governor Seward, his son Frederic W. 
Seward, subsequently his Assistant Secretary of State, 
and myself were the only persons in Washington who 
had any knowledge whatever of Mr. Lincoln's pro- 
posed movements. That there was a conspiracy in 
Baltimore to assassinate him as he should pass 
through, there can be no reasonable doubt. We 
hoped he might be able to come through in the day- 
time from Philadelphia, taking a train secretly and 



BY ELIHU B. IVASHBURNE. 



35 



cutting the wires, so that his departure could not be 
known. But General Scott's detectives in Baltimore 
had developed such a condition of things, that Gov- 
ernor Seward thought that the President-elect and 
his friends in Philadelphia should be advised in regard 
thereto, and on the night of the 2 2d of February he 
sent his son, Frederic W., over to Philadelphia to 
consult with them. Till now we had believed the 
President would come over from Philadelphia on the 
train leaving there at noon of the 23d. In the mean 
time the President had promised to run up to Harris- 
burg to attend a reception of the Pennsylvania Legis- 
lature at twelve o'clock on that day. Up to this time 
the situation had been fully discussed by the friends 
of Mr. Lincoln in the light of all the information re- 
ceived, but no particular programme? agreed upon. It 
was not until the party started for Harrisburg the 
next morninor that the best method of eettino- to 
Washington was finally talked over. Mr. Lincoln 
had previously had a conversation with the detective 
Pinkerton and Mr. Frederic W. Seward in regard to 
the condition of things at Baltimore. The Hon. Nor- 
man B. Judd, of Chicago, one of the most conspicuous 
and trusted friends of Mr. Lincoln, who had accom- 
panied the party from Springfield, suggested a plan 
which, after full discussion by Mr. Lincoln and all his 
friends present, was agreed upon and successfully 
carried out. This plan, as is generally known, was that 



36 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

after the dinner which Governor Curtin had tendered 
to him had been finished, at six o'clock in the after- 
noon, he should take a special car and train from 
Harrisburg for Philadelphia to intercept the night 
train from New York to Washington. The telegraph 
wires from Harrisburg were all cut, so there could be 
no possible telegraphic connection with the outside 
world. 

The connection was made at Philadelphia. Mr. 
Lincoln was transferred to the Washington train 
without observation, to arrive at his destination on 
time the next morning without the least miscarriage, 
as will be stated hereafter. On the afternoon of the 
23d, Mr. Seward came to my seat in the House of 
Representatives, and told me he had no information 
from his son nor any one else in respect of Mr. 
Lincoln's movements, and that he could have none, 
as the wires were all cut, but he thought it very 
probable he would arrive in the regular train from 
Philadelphia, and he suggested that we would meet 
at the depot to receive him. We were promptly 
on hand ; the train arrived in time, and with strained 
eyes we watched the descent of the passengers. But 
there was no Mr. Lincoln among them ; though 
his arrival was by no means certain, yet we were 
much disappointed. But as there was no telegraphic 
connection, it was impossible for us to have any in- 
formation. It was no use to speculate — sad, disap- 



BY EUHU B. WASHBURNE. 37 

pointed, and under the empire of conflicting emo- 
tions we separated to go to our respective homes, 
but agreeing to be at the depot on the arrival of the 
New York train the next morning before daylight, 
hoping either to meet the President or get some 
information as to his movements. I was on hand in 
season, but to my great disappointment Governor 
Seward did not appear. I planted myself behind 
one of the great pillars in the old Washington and 
Baltimore depot, where I could see and not be ob- 
served. Presently the train came rumbling in on 
time. It was a moment of great anxiety to me. 

There has been a great deal printed in the news- 
papers about Mr. Lincoln's arrival in Washington 
and about the "Scotch cap" and "big shawl" he 
wore through Baltimore, etc., etc., most of which is 
mere stuff. I propose now to tell about his arrival 
at Washington, from my own personal knowledge — 
what I saw with my own eyes and what I heard with 
my own ears, not the eyes and ears of some one else. 

As I have stated, I stood behind the pillar await- 
ing the arrival of the train. When it came to a 
stop I watched with fear and trembling to see the 
passengers descend. I saw every car emptied, and 
there was no Mr. Lincoln. I was well-nigh in de- 
spair, and when about to leave I saw slowly emerge 
from the last sleeping car three persons. I could 
not mistake the long, lank form of Mr. Lincoln, and 



38 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

my heart bounded with joy and gratitude. He had 
on a soft low-crowned hat, a muffler around his neck, 
and a short bob-tailed overcoat. Any one who knew 
him at that time could not have failed to recognize 
him at once, but, I must confess, he looked more like 
a well-to-do farmer from one of the back towns of 
Jo Daviess County coming to Washington to see the 
city, take out his land warrant and get the patent for 
his farm, than the President of the United States. 

The only persons that accompanied Mr. Lincoln 
were Pinkerton, the well-known detective, recently 
deceased, and Ward H. Lamon. When they were 
fairly on the platform and a short distance from the 
car, I stepped forward and accosted the President : 
" How are you, Lincoln?" 

At this unexpected and rather familiar salutation 
the gentlemen were apparently somewhat startled, 
but Mr. Lincoln, who had recognized me, relieved 
them at once by remarking in his peculiar voice : 
" This is only Washburne ! " 

Then we all exchanged congratulations and 
walked out to the front of the depot, where I had a 
carriage in waiting. Entering the carriage (all four 
of us) we drove rapidly to Willard's Hotel, entering 
on Fourteenth Street, before it was fairly daylight. 
The porter showed us into the little receiving room 
at the head of the stairs, and at my direction went 
to the office to have Mr. Lincoln assigned a room. 



BY ELIHU B. WASHBURNE. 39 

We had not been in the hotel more than two 
minutes before Governor Seward hurriedly entered, 
much out of breath and somewhat chagrined to 
think he had not been up in season to be at the 
depot on the arrival of the train. The meeting of 
those two great men under the extraordinary cir- 
cumstances which surrounded them was full of emo- 
tion and thankfulness. I soon took my leave, but 
not before promising Governor Seward that I would 
take breakfast with him at eight o'clock ; and as I 
passed out the outside door the Irish porter said to 
me with a smiling face : 

" And by faith it is you who have brought us a 
Prisidint." 

At eight the Governor and I sat down to a simple 
and relishing breakfast. We had been relieved of 
a load of anxiety almost too great to bear. The 
President had reached Washington safely and our 
spirits were exalted, and with a sense of great satis- 
faction we sipped our delicious coffee and loaded 
our plates with the first run of Potomac shad. 

Mr. Blaine, in his Twenty Years of Congress, 
has been led into an error in speaking of the man- 
ner in which Lincoln reached Washington. He 
says : 

" He reached Washington by a night journey 
taken secretly, much against his own will and to his 
subsequent chagrin and mortification, but urged 



40 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Upon him by the advice of those in whose advice 
and wisdom he was forced to confide." 

The only truth in the statement is that he 
"reached Washington by a night journey taken 
secretly." 

I was the first man to see him after his arrival in 
Washington and talk with him of the incidents of 
his journey, and I know he was neither "mortified" 
nor " chagrined " at the manner in which he reached 
Washington. He expressed to me in the warmest 
terms his satisfaction at the complete success of his 
journey ; and I have it from persons who were about 
him in Philadelphia and Harrisburg that the plan 
agreed upon met his hearty approval, and he ex- 
pressed a cheerful willingness to adapt himself to 
the novel circumstances. I do not believe that Mr. 
Lincoln ever expressed a regret that he had not, 
" according to his own desire, gone through Balti- 
more in open day," etc. It is safe to say he never 
had any such "desire." His own detective, Pin- 
kerton, a man who had his entire confidence, had 
been some time in Baltimore, with several members 
of his force, in unraveling rebel plots, produced to 
him the most conclusive evidence of a conspiracy to 
assassinate him. General Scott's detectives had dis- 
covered the same thing, and there was a great deal 
of individual testimony tending to establish the same 
fact. While Mr. Lincoln would have confronted any 



BY ELIHU B. WASHBURNE. 4 1 

danger in the performance of duty, he was not a 
man given to bravado and quixotic schemes, and 
what he subsequently stated touching this matter 
comprises really all there is in it. He declared : 

" I did not believe then, nor do I now believe I 
should have been assassinated had I gone through 
Baltimore as first contemplated, but / tJiougJit it 
wise to run no risk where 7io risk was necessary.'' ^ 

In the same paragraph Mr. Blaine says, that " it 
must be creditable to the administration of Mr. Bu- 
chanan that ample provision had been made for the 
protection of the rightful ruler of the nation " (p. 
240). If Mr. Blaine means by this that Mr. Bu- 
chanan, driven by public indignation, had ordered 
a few straggling companies of regular infantry to 
Washington, that is one thing ; but if he referred to 
the protection of the "rightful ruler" of the nation 
in getting to Washington, his good faith was imposed 
upon. I was in a position to know all that was going 
on in relation to Mr. Lincoln's journey to Washing- 
ton, and I never heard it suggested or hinted that Mr. 
Buchanan occupied himself with that matter. I am 
satisfied he had no more knowledge of Mr. Lincoln's 
movements than those of " the man in the moon." 

I cannot here recount all Mr. Lincoln's acts of 
kindness to me while President. He always seemed 
anxious to gratify me, and I can recollect of no 

* Lossing's Pictorial History of the Rebellion^ vol. i. , p. 279. 



42 



REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



single favor that I asked of him that he did not 
cheerfully accord. I will mention a simple incident. 
In the fall of 1863, my brother, Gen. Washburne, 
of Wisconsin, was stationed at a most unhealthy 
camp at Helena, Arkansas. He was taken danger- 
ously sick with malarial dysentery, and there was 
little prospect of his recovery unless he could be 
removed to some healthier location. I wrote to Mr. 
Lincoln, briefly, asking for a leave of absence for 
him for cause of health, and in due time I received 
the following reply : 

" Private and Confidential. 

Executive Mansion, ) 
Washington, Oct. 26, 1863. \ 

" Hon. E. B. Washburne : 

''My dear Sir: — Yours of the 12th has been in 
my hands several days. Inclosed I send a leave of 
absence for your brother, in as good form as I think 
I can safely put it. Without knowing whether he 
would accept it, I have tendered the collectorship of 
Portland, Maine, to your other brother, the Governor. 

"Thanks to both you and our friend Campbell for 
your kind words and intentions. A second term 
would be a great honor, and a great labor, which 
together, perhaps, I would not decline, if tendered. 

" Yours truly, 

"A. LINCOLN." 



£V ELIHU B. WASHBURNE. 4^ 

This last paragraph refers to a letter of the Hon. 
Thompson Campbell, whom I have before referred to 
in this essay, and in which we asked permission to 
bringr him forward as a candidate for a re-election. 

But I must bring my contribution to a close. The 
rebellion, in April, 1865, was fast approaching an end. 
Having expressed a desire to be at the front, wher- 
ever that might be, when the hour of its final collapse 
might come finally to strike, General Grant had 
given me a pass of the broadest character, to go any- 
where in the Union lines. 

The news of the fall of Richmond reached Galena 
at eleven o'clock Monday morning, April 3, 1865. 
I took the train "for the front" at five p.m., and 
arrived in Washington Thursday morning, April 
6th. I found that the President, Mrs. Lincoln, and 
a party of friends had left on an excursion for Fort- 
ress Monroe, City Point, and Richmond. Mr. Blaine 
joined me, and we made the trip together to 
City Point. On arriving there, late Friday after- 
noon, we found the President and party had returned 
from Richmond, and were on their steamer, the 
River Queen, which was to remain at City Point 
over night. In the evening Mr. Blaine and myself 
went on board the steamer to pay our respects to 
the President. I never passed a more delightful 
evening. Mr. Lincoln was in perfect health and in 
exuberant spirits. His relation of his experiences 



44 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

and of all he saw at Richmond had all of that qualnt- 
ness and originality for which he was distinguished. 
Full of anecdote and reminiscence, he never flagged 
during- the whole evenino^. His son Robert was in 
the military service and with the advancing army, 
and knowing that I was bound for the " front " the 
next morning, he said to me : 

" I believe I will drop Robert a line if you will 
take it. I will hand it to you in the morning before 
you start." 

I went to the wharf the next morning, and soon 
Mr. Lincoln came ashore from his steamer, with the 
letter in his hand. He was erect and buoyant, and 
it seemed to me that I had never seen him look so 
great and grand. After a few words of conversation, 
he handed me the letter, and I bid him what proved 
to be, alas ! 2, final adiai. I made my way with all 
diligence and through much tribulation to the 
" front," and arrived at Appomattox in season to see 
the final surrender of the Army of Northern Vir- 
ginia, and General Lee and his associate generals 
prisoners of war. 

Returning to City Point, I found awaiting me 
there a small Government steamer which was to take 
me to Washington. On arriving there I met the 
most terrible news that had ever shocked the civilized 
world : Mr. Lincoln had been assassinated. That was 
Saturday night, April 15, 1865. I gave directions 



BY ELIHU B. WASHBURNE. 45 

to have the steamer proceed directly to Washington, 
where I arrived early Monday morning, April 17th, 
and in season to participate in the stupendous prep- 
arations to do honor to the memory of the dead 
President. 

I was on the Congressional Committee to escort 
his remains to Springfield, Illinois, where I followed 
his colossal hearse to the grave. 

E. B. WASHBURNE. 



III. 
George W. Julian. 

MY first meeting with Mr. Lincoln was in Jan- 
uary, 1 86 1, when I visited him at his home 
in Springfield. 

I had a curiosity to see the famous " rail-splitter," 
as he was then familiarly called, and as a member- 
elect of the Thirty-seventh Congress I desired to 
form some acquaintance with the man who was des- 
tined to play a conspicuous part in the impending 
national crisis. Although I had zealously supported 
him in the canvass, and was strongly impressed by 
the grasp of thought and aptness of expression which 
marked his great debate with Douglas, yet, as a 
thorough-going Free Soiler and a member of the 
Radical wing of Republicanism, my prepossessions 
were against him. He was a Kentuckian, and a 
conservative Whig, who had supported General 
Taylor in 1848, and General Scott four years later, 
when the Whig party finally sacrificed both its char- 
acter and its life on the altar of slavery. His nomi- 
nation, moreover, had been secured through the 
diplomacy of conservative Republicans, whose mor- 



48 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

bid dread of "abolitionism" unfitted them, as I be- 
lieved, for leadership in the battle with slavery which 
had now become inevitable, while the defeat of Mr. 
Seward had been to me a severe disappointment and 
a real personal grief. Still, I did not wish to do Mr. 
Lincoln the slightest injustice, while I hoped and be- 
lieved his courage and firmness would prove equal to 
the emergency. 

On meeting him, I found him far better-looking 
than the campaign pictures had represented. These, 
as a general rule, were wretched caricatures. His 
face, when lighted up in conversation, was not un- 
handsome, and the kindly and winning tones of his 
voice pleaded for him, as did the smile which played 
about his rug-p-ed features. He was full of anecdote 
and humor, and readily found his way to the hearts 
of those who enjoyed a welcome to his fireside. His 
face, however, was sometimes marked by that touch- 
ing expression of sadness which became so generally 
noticeable in the following years. I was much pleased 
with our first Republican Executive, and returned 
home more fully inspired than ever with the purpose 
to sustain him to the utmost in facing the duties of 
his great office. 

The chief purpose of this visit, however, related 
to another matter. The rumor was then current and 
generally credited, that Simon Cameron and Caleb 
B. Smith were to be made Cabinet ministers, and I 



BV GEORGE W. JULIAN. 49 

desired to enter my protest against such a movement. 
Mr. Lincoln heard me patiently, but made no com- 
mittal ; and the subsequent selection of these repre- 
sentatives of Pennsylvania and Indiana Republican- 
ism, along with Seward and Chase, illustrated the 
natural tendency of his mind to mediate between 
opposing forces. This was further illustrated a little 
later when some of his old Whig friends pressed the 
appointment of an incompetent and unfit man for an 
important position. When I remonstrated against 
it, Mr. Lincoln replied : '* There is much force in 
what you say, but, in the balancing of matters, I 
guess I shall have to appoint him." This " balanc- 
ing of matters " was a source of infinite vexation 
during his administration, as it has been to his suc- 
cessors ; but it was then easier to criticise this policy 
than to point the way to any practicable method of 
avoiding it. 

I did not see Mr. Lincoln again till the day of his 
inauguration, when he entered the Senate-chamber 
armx-in-arm with Mr. Buchanan. The latter was so 
withered and bowed with age that in contrast with 
the towering form of his successor he seemed little 
more than half a man. The public curiosity to see 
the President-elect reached its climax as he made his 
appearance on the east portico of the Capitol. All 
sorts of stories had been told and believed about 
his personal appearance. His character had been 



50 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LIN CO IN 

grossly misrepresented and maligned in both sections 
of the Union ; and the critical condition of the coun- 
try naturally whetted the appetite of m.en of all par- 
ties to see and hear the man who was now the central 
figure of the Republic. The tone of moderation, 
tenderness, and good-will which breathed through his 
inaugural speech made a profound impression in his 
favor ; while his voice, though not very strong or 
full-toned, rang out over the acres of people before 
him with surprising distinctness, and, I think, was 
heard in the remotest parts of his audience. 

The pressure for office during the first few months 
of the new administration was utterly unprecedented 
and beggared all description. It was a sort of epi- 
demic, and Mr. Lincoln, at times, was perfectly ap- 
palled by it. It gave him no pause, but pursued him 
remorselessly night and day ; and there v^^ere mo- 
ments when his face was the picture of an indescrib- 
able weariness and despair. It jarred upon his sen- 
timent of patriotism, when the country was just 
entering upon the awful struggle for its life, and 
seemed to make him sick at heart. Sometimes he 
lost his temper. An instance of this occurred soon 
after his inauguration, which also illustrates his fidel- 
ity to his friends. A delegation of California Re- 
publicans called on him with a proposed political 
slate coverine the chief offices on the Pacific coast. 
Their programme was opposed, in part, by Senator 



BY GEORGE IV. JULIAN. 5 I 

Baker, of Oregon, who quite naturally claimed the 
right to be consulted respecting the patronage of 
his section of the Union. Some of the Californians 
very unwisely sought the accomplishment of their 
purpose by assailing both the public and private 
character of the Oregon Senator, who was an old- 
time friend of the President. The an^er of Mr. 
Lincoln was kindled instantly, and blazed forth with 
such vehemence and intensity that everybody present 
quailed before it. His wrath was simply terrible, as 
he put his foot down and told the delegation that 
Senator Baker was his friend ; that he would permit 
no man to assail him in his presence ; and that it 
was not possible for them to accomplish their pur- 
pose by any such methods. The result was that the 
charges against Senator Baker were summarily with- 
drawn and apologized for, and such a disposition of 
the offices on the Pacific slope finally made as proved 
satisfactory to all parties. These facts I learned at 
the time from an intimate personal friend who formed 
a part of the delegation, and who was afterward 
honored by an important appointment in his State. 

This is not the only case in which Mr. Lincoln lost 
his habitual good temper. After my nomination for 
re-election in the year 1864, Mr. Holloway, who was 
holding the position of Commissioner of Patents, and 
was one of the editors of a Republican newspaper in 
my district, refused to recognize me as the party can- 



52 



REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



didate, and kept the name of my defeated competi- 
tor standing in his paper. It threatened discord 
and mischief, and I went to the President with 
these facts, and on the strength of them asked for 
Mr. Holloway's removal from office. 

"Your nomination," said Mr. Lincoln, "is as bind- 
ing on Republicans as mine, and you can rest assured 
that Mr. Holloway shall support you, openly and 
unconditionally, or lose his head." 

This was entirely satisfactory, but after waiting a 
week or two for the announcement of my name, I 
returned to the President with the information that 
Mr. Holloway was still keeping up his fight, and that 
I had come to ask of him decisive measures. I saw 
in an instant that his ire was roused. He rang the 
bell for his messenger, and said to him in a very ex- 
cited and emphatic way, 

"Tell Mr. Holloway to come to me !" 

The messenger hesitated, looking somewhat sur- 
prised and bewildered, when Mr. Lincoln said in a 
tone still more emphatic, 

" Tell Mr. Holloway to come to vie ! " 

It was perfectly evident that the business would 
now be attended to, and in a few days my name was 
duly announced, and the work of party insubordina- 
tion ceased. 

But the temper of the President was far more seri- 
ously tried early in the year 1862, touching the con- 



BY GEORGE IF. JULIAN. 53 

duct of the war. General McClellan had disregarded 
the general order of the President, dated the 19th of 
January, for a movement of all our forces. He had 
protested against the order of January 31st, direct- 
ing an expedition for the purpose of seizing upon the 
railroad south-west of Manassas Junction. He had 
opposed all forward movements of the Army of the 
Potomac, and again and again refused to co-operate 
with the Navy in breaking up the blockade of that 
river. And his movement early in March in the 
direction of the enemy at Centreville and Manassas 
was undertaken with very great reluctance, and after 
the enemy had evacuated these positions. Mr. Lin- 
coln had clung to General McClellan with great per- 
tinacity and in the face of much popular clamor, but 
his patience was now completely exhausted, and his 
passions carried him by storm. According to Sen- 
ator Chandler, from whom I obtained my informa- 
tion, the scene strikingly suggested that described by 
Colonel Lear, when General Washington received 
the news of St. Clair's defeat by the Indians in 1791. 
I well remember the delight and exultation of the 
Michigan Senator as he related the circumstances to 
me, and predicted the victory for our arms which he 
believed it foreshadowed. "Old Abe," said he, " is 
mad, and the war will now go on." 

During the month of January, 1863, I called with 
the Indiana delegation to see the President respect- 



54 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

ing the appointment of Judge Otto, of Indiana, as 
Assistant Secretary of the Interior. He was soon 
after appointed, but Mr. Lincohi then only re- 
sponded to our application by treating us to four 
anecdotes. 

Senator Lane told me that when he heard a story 
that pleased him he took a memorandum of it, and 
filed it away among his papers. This was probably 
true. At any rate, by some method or other, his 
supply seemed inexhaustible, and always aptly avail- 
able. He entered into the enjoyment of his stories 
with all his heart, and completely lived over again 
the delight he had experienced in telling them on 
previous occasions. When he told a particularly 
good story, and the time came to laugh, he would 
sometimes throw his left foot across his right knee, 
and clenching his foot with both hands and bending 
forward, his whole frame seemed to be convulsed 
with the effort to give expression to his sensations. 
His laugh was like that of the hero of Sartor Rcsar- 
tus, "a laugh of the whole man, from head to heel." 
I believe his anecdotes were his great solace and 
safeguard in seasons of severe mental depression. I 
remember that when I called on him on the 2d of 
July, 1862, at the time our forces were engaged in a 
terrific conflict with the enemy near Richmond, and 
everybody was anxious as to the result, he seemed 
quite as placid as usual, and at once yielded to his 



BY GEORGE W. JULIAN. 55 

ruling passion for story-telling. If I had not known 
his peculiarities, I should have pronounced him in- 
capable of any deep earnestness of feeling ; but his 
manner was so kindly, and so free from the ordinary 
crookedness of the poHtician and the vanity and self- 
importance of official position, that nothing but good 
will was inspired by his presence. 

In March following I called on the President 
respecting the appointments I had recommended 
under the conscription law, and took occasion to re- 
fer to the failure of General Fremont to obtain a 
command. He said he did not know where to place 
him, and that it reminded him of the old man who 
advised his son to take a wife, to which the young 
man responded, "Whose wife shall I take?" He 
proceeded to point out the practical difficulties in 
the way by referring to a number of important com- 
mands which might suit Fremont, but which could 
only be reached by removals he did not wish to 
make. I remarked that I was very sorry if this was 
true, and that it was unfortunate for our cause, as 1 
believed his restoration to duty would stir the coun- 
try as no other appointment could. He said : 

" It would stir the country favorably on one side, 
and stir it the other way on the other. It would 
please Fremont's friends, and displease the conserv- 
atives ; and that is all I can see in the stii^ring ar- 
gument. My proclamation," he added, " was to stir 



56 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

the country ; but it has done about as much harm as 
good." 

These observations were characteristic, and show- 
ed how reluctant he still was to turn away from the 
conservative counsels he had so long heeded. 

It has often been asserted that Secretary Stanton 
ruled Mr. Lincoln. This is a mistake. The Secre- 
tary would frequently overawe and sometimes brow- 
beat others, but he was never imperious in dealing 
with the President. This I have from Mr. Watson, 
for some time Assistant Secretary of War, and Mr. 
Whiting, while Solicitor of the War Department. 
Lincoln, however, had the highest opinion of Stan- 
ton, and their relations were always most kindly. 
The following anecdote illustrates the character of 
the two men, and Mr. Lincoln's method of dealing 
with a dilemma. It is related that a committee of 
Western men, headed by Mr. Lovejoy, procured 
from the President an important order looking to 
the exchanore of Eastern and Western soldiers, with 
a view to more effective work. Repairing to the 
ofhce of the Secretary, Mr. Lovejoy explained the 
scheme, as he had done before to the President, 
but was met by a fiat refusal. 

" But we have the President's order, sir," said 
Lovejoy. 

"Did Lincoln give you an order of that kind.^" 
said Stanton. 



BV GEORGE W. JULIAN. cy 

" He did, sir." 

" Then he is a d d fool," said the irate Sec- 
retary. 

'' Do you mean to say the President is a d d 

fool ? " asked Lovejoy, in amazement. 

" Yes, sir, if he gave you such an order as that." 

The bewildered Congressman from Illinois betook 
himself at once to the President, and related the re- 
sult of his conference. 

" Did Stanton say I was a d d fool ? " asked 

Lincoln, at the close of the recital. 

" He did, sir; and repeated it." 

After a moment's pause, and looking up, the Pres- 
ident said : 

" If Stanton said I was a d d fool, then I must 

be one, for he is nearly always right, and generally 
says what he means. I will step over and see him." 

Notwithstanding Mr. Lincoln's proverbial caution 
and diplomacy in dealing with difficult problems, he 
was completely armed with the courage of his con- 
victions, after his conclusions had been carefully ma- 
tured. No man was more ready to take the respon- 
sibility when his sense of duty commanded him. 
This was strikingly illustrated in the summer of 
1862, when he refused to sign the confiscation act of 
the 17th of July, without a modification first made 
exempting the fee of rebel land-owners from its op- 
eration. Congress was obliged to make the modifi- 



58 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

cation required as the only means of securing the 
important advantages of other features of the meas- 
ure ; but the action of tlie President was inexpressi- 
bly provoking to a large majority of Congress. It 
was bitterly denounced as an anti-Republican dis- 
crimination between real and personal property, 
when the nation was struggling for its life against 
a rebellious aristocracy founded on the monopoly of 
land and the ownership of negroes. The President 
was charged with thus prolonging the war and ag- 
gravating its cost by paralyzing one of the most po- 
tent means of putting down the rebellion, and pur- 
posely leaving the owners of large estates in full 
possession of their lands at the end of the struggle. 
He was arraigned as the deliberate betrayer of the 
freedmen and poor whites, who had been friendly to 
the Union, while the confiscation of life-estates as a 
war measure could prove of no practical advantage 
to the government or disadvantage to the enemy. 

The popular hostility to the President at this time 
cannot be described, and was wholly without prece- 
dent, and the opposition to him in Congress was 
still more intense. But Mr. Lincoln accepted the 
situation, and patiently abode his time. 

Two years later, when the fortunes of the war and 
his own reflections had wrought a change in his opin- 
ion, his frankness and courage in avowing it were 
as creditable to him as had been his firmness in fac- 



BY GEORGE IV. JULIAN. cq 

ing- a hostile public. Having heard of this change, I 
called to see him on the 2d of July, 1864, and asked 
him if I might say to the people that what I had 
learned on this subject was true, assuring him that I 
would make a far better fight for our cause if he 
would permit me to do so. He replied that when he 
prepared his veto of our law on the subject two 
years before he had not examined the matter thor- 
oughly, but that on further reflection, and on read- 
ing Solicitor Whiting's law argument, he had changed 
his view, and would now sign a bill striking at the 
fee of rebel land-holders, if we would send it to him. 
I was much gratified by this statement, which was 
of great service to the cause in the canvass ; but, un- 
fortunately, constitutional scruples respecting such 
legislation had gained ground, and although both 
houses of Congress at different times endorsed the 
measure, it never became a law, owing to unavoid- 
able differences between the President and Coneress 
on the question of reconstruction. 

Perhaps the most charming trait in the character 
of Mr. Lincoln was his geniality. With the excep- 
tion of occasional seasons of deep depression, his 
nature was all sunshine. His presence seemed a 
message of peace and good-will. Early in the war, 
after the Hutchinson family had been ordered out of 
the Army of the Potomac by General McClellan for 
the offense of singing Whittier's songs, he repeated- 



60 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

ly welcomed them to the White House and hstened 
to the music which had been considered detrimental 
to the service. He was delighted with it, selecting 
his favorite songs, and testifying his satisfaction by 
alternate laughter and tears. He said that if these 
were the songs they had been singing, he wished 
them to continue in the business, and that they 
should have a pass wherever they desired to go. 

Mr. Lincoln used to attend the rousing anti- 
slavery meetings that were held in the Smithsonian 
Institute, in the fall and winter of 1 86 1-2, which 
were addressed by several of the leading orators of 
Abolitionism. At one of these meetings, Horace 
Greeley delivered a written address, which Mr. Lin- 
coln listened to and very greatly admired. I sat by 
his side, and at the conclusion of the discourse he 
said to me : 

"That address is full of good thoughts, and I 
would like to take the manuscript home with me 
and carefully read it over some Sunday." 

During the progress of the war, he and Mr. Gree- 
ley had some radical difference of opinion about its 
prosecution and the duty of the government in deal- 
ing with the question of slavery ; but he had, I know, 
the most profound personal respect for Mr. Greeley, 
and placed the highest estimate upon his services as 
an independent writer and thinker. 

Mr. Lincoln had no resentments. He had kind 



BY GEORGE W. JULIAN. 6 1 

words for men who bitterly assailed him. He joined 
in no outcry against men in civil or military life who 
went astray. When the Republicans were denounc- 
ing Andrew Johnson after his maudlin speech on 
the 4th of March, 1865, he only said, " Poor Andy," 
and expressed the charitable hope that he would 
profit by his dreadful mistake. 

Few subjects have been more debated and less 
understood than the Proclamation of Emancipation. 
Mr. Lincoln was himself opposed to the measure, 
and when he very reluctantly issued the preliminary 
proclamation in September, 1862, he wished it dis- 
tinctly understood that the deportation of the slaves 
was, in his mind, inseparably connected with the 
policy. Like Mr. Clay and other prominent leaders 
of the old Whig party, he believed in colonization, 
and that the separation of the two races was neces- 
sary to the welfare of both. He was at that time 
pressing upon the attention of Congress a scheme of 
colonization in Chiriqui, in Central America, which 
Senator Pomeroy espoused with great zeal, and in 
which he had the favor of a majority of the Cabinet, 
including Secretary Smith, who warmly indorsed the 
project. Subsequent developments, however, proved 
that it was simply an organization for land-stealing 
and plunder, and it was abandoned ; but it is by no 
means certain that if the President had foreseen this 
fact his preliminary notice to the rebels would have 



62 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

been given. There are strong reasons for saying 
that he doubted his right to emancipate under the 
war power, and he doubtless meant what he said 
when he compared an Executive order to that effect 
to "the Pope's Bull against the comet." In discuss- 
ing the question, he used to liken the case to that of 
the boy who, when asked how many legs his calf 
would have if he called its tail a leg, replied, " Five," 
to which the prompt response was made that calling 
the tail a leg would not make it a leg. 

But the right to emancipate by such an edict and 
the legal effect of it when issued were not the only 
questions with which the President was obliged to 
deal. The demand for it was wide-spread and 
rapidly extending in the Republican party. The 
popular current had become irresistible. The power 
to issue it was taken for granted. All doubts on the 
subject were consumed in the burning desire of the 
people, or forgotten in the travail of war. The 
anti-slavery element was becoming more and more 
impatient and impetuous. Opposition to that ele- 
ment now involved more serious consequences than 
offending the Border States. Mr. Lincoln feared 
that enlistments would cease, and that Congress 
would even refuse the necessary supplies to carry 
on the war, if he declined any longer to place it 
on a clearly defined antislavery basis. He finally 
yielded to this pressure, and In doing so he became 



BY GEORGE IV. JULIAN. 63 

the liberator of the slaves through the triumph of 
our arms which it insured. 

The authority to emancipate under the war power 
was therefore a side issue. It undoubtedly existed, 
but it could only be asserted over territory occupied 
by our armies. Each commanding general, as fast 
as our flag advanced, could have offered freedom to 
the slaves, as could the President himself. This was 
the view of Secretary Chase. A paper proclamation 
of freedom, as to States in the power of the enemy, 
could have no more validity than a paper blockade 
of their coast. Mr. Lincoln's proclamation did not 
apply to the Border States, which were loyal, and 
in which slavery was of course untouched. It did 
not pretend to operate upon the slaves in other 
large districts, in which it would have been effective 
at once, but studiously excluded them, while it ap- 
plied mainly to States and parts of States within the 
military occupation of the enemy, where it was neces- 
sarily void. 

But even if the proclamation could have given 
freedom to the slaves according to its scope, their 
permanent enfranchisement would not have been 
secured, because the stattis of slavery, as it existed 
under the local laws of the States prior to the war, 
would have remained the same after the re-establish- 
ment of peace. All emancipated slaves found in those 
States, or returning to them, would have been sub- 



64 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

ject to slavery as before, for the simple reason that 
no military proclamation could operate to abolish 
their municipal laws. Nothing short of a constitu- 
tional amendment could at once give freedom to our 
black millions and make their re-enslavement impos- 
sible ; and " this," as Mr. Lincoln declared in ear- 
nestly urging its adoption, " is a king's-cure for all 
evils. It winds the whole thing up." All this is 
now attested by very high authorities on interna- 
tional and constitutional law ; and while it takes 
nothing from the glory of Mr. Lincoln as the great 
Emancipator, it shows how wisely he employed a 
splendid popular delusion in the salvation of his 
country. His proclamation had no present legal 
effect within territory not under the control of our 
arms ; but as an expression of the spirit of the peo- 
ple and the policy of the administration, it had be- 
come both a moral and a military necessity. The 
simple truth should now be told, and the honor, due 
to Mr. Lincoln, be placed upon its just foundation. 

But no picture of Abraham Lincoln which leaves 
out his private life can do him justice. Every linea- 
ment of his grand public career should have the set- 
ting of his rare personal worth. In all the qualities 
that go to make up character, he was a thoroughly 
genuine man. His sense of justice was perfect and 
ever present. His integrity was second only to that 
of Washington, and his ambition as stainless. His 



BY GEORGE W. JULIAX. 65 

sympathy for the unfortunate and the down-trodden 
earned for him the fitting title of " Father Abra- 
ham," and made him the idol of the common people. 
His devotion to wife and children was as abiding 
and unbounded as his love of country, and his hap- 
piest hours in the White House were spent in the 
companionship of his little boy " Tad," who used to 
gambol about his knees. When death entered his 
household his sorrow was so consuming that it could 
only be measured by the singular depth and intensity 
of his love. He was human in the best and highest 
sense of the word. The record of too many of our 
famous men has been marred by personal vices ; but 
in him, were happily blended the qualities which 
adorn public station and dignify private life. 

GEORGE W. JULIAN. 



IV. 

R. E. Fenton. 

MY relations with President Lincoln were cor- 
dial. I was a member of the House of 
Representatives when he entered upon the duties 
of President, and remained in the House until 
December, 1864, when I resigned my seat for the 
office of Governor of New York. 

In the summer and fall of 1864 — during the 
Presidential canvass — there was great anxiety in 
respect to the decision of the people at the ballot- 
box, as well as to our varying success on the 
field of arms. The war for the Union had pros- 
pered slowly. Determining results had not been 
realized. Its frightful proportions were more ap- 
parent as the days increased. Patriotic people 
became restless. Many of our Republican friends 
thought the war was not prosecuted with sufficient 
vigor and wisdom. Party spirit was embittered by 
conflicting sympathies, and severe criticisms were 
ventured touching the conduct of the war. The 
Democratic party had in terms even declared it to 
be " a failure." To add intensity to the anxiety on 



68 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

the Republican side at this condition of affairs, the 
government of New York State was in Democratic 
hands. Our principal commercial port, our great 
city and center of money and exchange, was within 
the boundary of the State, and State and local au- 
thorities, or the practices under them, might at any 
time seriously embarrass the General Government 
in the farther prosecution of the war. Hence, New 
York was a stake of mighty import. Each party 
was certain to exert itself to the utmost. And, even 
beyond the electoral vote of the State as a possible 
factor in merely deciding who should be President, 
the case was surrounded with the gravest concern, 
especially for those in charge of the government, 
and whose war purposes and policy w^ere clearly 
defined. 

On the 2 2d day of August, I received a telegram 
from Mr. John G. Nicolay, Private Secretary, saying 
that the President desired to see me. I arrived in 
Washington next day. The President, speaking to 
me said, in language as nearly as I can remember : 
"You are to be nominated by our folks for Gov- 
ernor of your State. Seymour of course will be the 
Democratic nominee. You will have a hard fight. 
I am very desirous that you should win the battle. 
New York should be on our side by honest posses- 
sion. There is some trouble among our folks over 
there, which we must try and manage. Or, rather. 



BY R. E. FEN TON. 69 

there is one man who may give us trouble, because 
of his indifference, if in no other way. He has great 
influence, and his feehngs may be reflected in many 
of his friends. We must have his counsel and co- 
operation if possible. This, in one sense, is more 
important to you than to me, I think, for I should 
rather expect to get on without New York, but you 
can't. But in a larger sense than what is merely 
personal to myself, I am anxious for New York, and 
we must put our heads together and see if the mat- 
ter can't be fixed." 

In a word, Mr. Thurlow Weed was dissatisfied 
with the disposition of the federal patronage in the 
city of New York. Especially he felt that Mr. 
Simeon Draper, Collector of the Port, and Mr. 
Rufus F. Andrews, Surveyor, were unfriendly to 
him, and that he had no voice in those places of 
influence and power. Patronage had a welcome in 
the public service then. Removals and appoint- 
ments were made upon the judgment or caprice of 
those at the head. The Republican convention in 
New York to place a candidate for Governor before 
the people was to come off early in September. 

As a result of this consultation with Mr. Lincoln, 
in the evening of the day after my arrival in Wash- 
ington, Mr. Nicolay and I left for New York, and in 
Room No. II, Astor House, next forenoon, I had a 
talk with Mr. Weed. I need not speak of the par- 



70 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

ticulars of that conference. It is enough to say that 
Mr. Nicolay returned to Washington with the resig- 
nation of Mr. Rufus F. Andrews, and that Mr. 
Abram Wakeman — zealous friend of Mr. Weed — 
at once became his successor as Surveyor. From 
that time forward Mr. Weed was earnest and help- 
ful in the canvass. The small majority in New 
York in November — less than 7,000 for the Repub- 
lican electoral ticket — justified the anxiety of Mr. 
Lincoln, and serves to illustrate his political sagac- 
ity and tact. He was always politician as well as 
statesman. 

Mr. Lincoln was not a successful impromptu 
speaker. He required a little time for thought and 
arrangement of the thing to be said. I give an in- 
stance in point. After the election to which I have 
referred, just before I resigned my seat in Congress 
to enter upon my official duties as Governor at Al- 
bany, New Yorkers and others in Washington thought 
to honor me with a serenade. I was the euest of 
ex-Mayor Bowen. After the music and speaking 
usual upon such occasions, it was proposed to call 
on the President. I accompanied the committee in 
charge of the proceedings, followed by bands and a 
thousand people. It was full nine o'clock when we 
reached the Mansion. The President was taken by 
surprise, and said he "didn't know just what he could 
say to satisfy the crowd and himself." Going from 



BY R. E. FENTON. J I 

the library room down the stairs to the portico front, 
he asked me to say a few words first, and give him if 
I could " a peg to hang on." It was just when Gen- 
eral Sherman was en route from Atlanta to the sea, 
and we had no definite news as to his safety or where- 
abouts. After one or two sentences, rather common- 
place, the President farther said he had no war news 
other than was known to all, and he supposed his 
ignorance in regard to General Sherman was the 
ignorance of all ; that " we all knew where Sherman 
went in, but none of us knew where he would come 
out." This last remark was in the peculiarly quaint, 
happy manner of Mr. Lincoln, and created great ap- 
plause. He immediately withdrew, saying he " had 
raised a good laugh and it was a good time for him 
to quit." In all he did not speak more than two 
minutes, and, as he afterward told me, because he 
had no time to think of much to say. 

A few days after I succeeded to the office of Gov- 
ernor I was led to an investigation in regard to the 
quota of men for New York for the field, under the 
President's call for 300,000 of December 19th just 
previous. My search led me to doubt the correctness 
of the assignment of quotas to several localities, and, 
as between several localities or districts, it was, to my 
mind, unequal and unjust. I do not mean that it was 
so intended. It was a difficult and perplexing mat- 
ter ; differences in respect to methods were liable to 



72 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

arise and errors were likely to creep in. And, more- 
over, the total number, 61,000, for the State seemed 
to me clearly excessive. Thus impressed, accom- 
panied by General George W. Palmer of my military 
staff, I went to Washington on the 21st of January. 

My interviews with the Secretary of War and the 
Provost-marshal General did not end favorably to 
my views. The Secretary of War was more than 
firm. He was indeed rigid in adhering to the assign- 
ment for New York as then made. Not doubting 
the right and justice of my claim for reduction and 
re-assignment as to the districts, I called on Mr. 
Lincoln. He gave me time and listened attentively 
and patiently to all I had to say. At the close he 
remarked, " I guess you have the best of it, and I 
must advise Stanton and Fry to ease up a little." He 
wrote upon a card to Mr. Stanton, and gave it to me 
to carry to him, as follows : 



The Governor has a pretty good case. I 
feel sure he is more than half right. We 
don't want him to feel cross and we in the 
wrong. Try and fix it with him. 

A. LINCOLN. 



I write from the card, which the gruff and great Stan- 
ton allowed me to retain. 



BY R. E. FEN TON. 73 

Neither he nor General Fry could go over the 
matter with a view to the further precise adjustment 
during my sojourn. The Legislature of my State 
was in session and I could not tarry. I will only add 
that the quota as finally arranged was fully 9,000 less, 
and the equality between the several districts was in 
a great measure restored. It was mainly satisfactory 
to the people. And the State had the proud honor, 
as theretofore, of unhesitatingly and heroically meet- 
ing this further demand upon her patriotism. 

Turning back out of the order of events to the 
fall and early winter of 1861, General McClellan, 
with an army which some authorities place at full 
150,000 men, was then in camp and quarters around 
about Washington. It was said to be intended to 
move "on to Richmond," or at least toward the 
Confederate forces, some time before the rains of 
the winter months should set in. Congress convened 
the first week in December. The army seemed to 
be in good condition but impatient. The roads 
were exceptionally dry and good for the season of 
the year. The loyal people, through the press and 
otherwise, were calling for a forward movement, and 
the representatives of the people in Congress were 
ready to open upon General McClellan with wrath- 
ful eloquence because of the delay. One, two, and 
more weeks passed and the army did not move. It 
was felt that something must be done to avert the 



74 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

threatened heated discussion at Washington ; some- 
thing to prevent further dissatisfaction and distrust 
among the soldiers and the people. Galusha A. Grow 
was Speaker of the House of Representatives. 

About the i8th, the Speaker, the Hon. Schuyler 
Colfax, and myself called on Mr. Lincoln to plan 
with him if need be, or better to say, to have his 
judgment as to a way of escape from the danger 
of an aroused hostile public sentiment which then 
seemed imminent. 

Mr. Lincoln was keenly alive to the situation. 
The character and opinions of this rugged-featured 
and intellectually great man always enforced respect 
and confidence whatever the pleasantry of his man- 
ner. He said Providence, with favoring sky and 
earth, seemed to beckon the army on, but General 
McClellan, he supposed, knew his business and had 
his reasons for disregarding these hints of Provi- 
dence. "And," said Mr. Lincoln, "as we have got 
to stand by the General, I think a good way to do 
it may be for Congress to take a recess for several 
weeks, and by the time you get together again, if 
McClellan is not off with the army, Providence is 
very likely to step in with hard roads and force us to 
say, ' the army can't move.' " He continued : " You 
know Dickens said of a certain man that if he would 
always follow his nose he would never stick fast in 
the mud. Well, when the rains set in it will be im- 



BY R. E. FEN TON. 75 

possible for even our eager and gallant soldiers to 
keep their noses so high that their feet will not 
stick in the clay mud of Old Virginia." I have given 
very nearly the words of Mr. Lincoln. His felicity 
in stating a case and his good sense always im- 
pressed me, and my memory loses nothing in vivid- 
ness with the lapse of years. 

The Congress was adjourned for the holiday 
period quite as early and quite as long as usual, not- 
withstanding pressing public affairs were requiring 
the attention of the law-making power. When it re- 
assembled — January 5th, as I remember — the rain had 
come, the Virginia roads were well-nigh impassable, 
and the army was still in and around Washington. 
Verily, to move then was to stick fast in the mud, 
and the Congre^ and the country reluctantly be- 
came reconciled, in a measure^ to the situation. 

R. E. FENTON. 



V. 

J. p. Usher. 

" Without doubt the greatest man of rebellion times, the one matchless 
among forty millions for the peculiar difficulties of the period, was Abraham 
Lincoln." James Longstreet. 

MR. LINCOLN'S greatness was founded upon 
his devotion to truth, his humanity and his 
innate sense of justice to all. 

In his career as a lawyer, he traversed a wide 
range of territory in Illinois ; he attended many 
courts and had many professional engagements, 
some remunerative and others not. In all his con- 
flicts at the bar, wherein it may be said he was suc- 
cessful in every case that he ought to have been, he 
never inflicted an unnecessary wound upon aft ad- 
versary, and no one ever thought of uttering a rude 
word to him. He affected no superior wisdom over 
his fellows, yet he was often appealed to by the 
judge to say what rule of law ought to be applied in 
a given case, and what disposition the parties ought 
to make of it, and his opinion, when expressed, al- 
ways seemed to be so reasonable, fair and just, that 
the parties accepted it. He was never known to re- 



78 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

buke any one for intemperance, profanity, or other 
violation of social duty. While he professed nothing 
in these respects, people did not drink immoderately 
in his presence, neither were they vulgar nor profane. 
When he appeared, every one seemed to be happy ; 
they wanted to hear him talk ; he always had some- 
thing to say that would amuse or instruct them — 
something that they had not heard before. He 
argued great causes, in which principle and property 
were involved, logically, and with wonderful ability. 
Trifling causes he met with ridicule, and often by an 
anecdote, in the use of which he was unsurpassed : 
the cause would be abandoned in a gale of merri- 
ment, the losing party being neither provoked nor 
angry. 

A man endowed with such qualities was bound to 
be a successful politician ; and, if he turned his 
attention in that direction, none who knew him 
could doubt upon which side he would be, or with 
which party he would unite. He was a Whig, 
because he believed the principles of that party best 
conduced to the welfare of his fellow-man. He be- 
lieved that the true principles of government were 
those which Mr. Clay advocated. He believed in the 
protection of American industries. He believed 
that the slavery of men was wrong in principle, and 
impossible of justification, and he held in profound 
veneration and respect the founders of the State of 



BY J. P. USHER. 79 

Illinois, who had, by constitutional provision, for- 
ever prevented the existence of that institution in 
the State. 

His opinions upon this subject would have re- 
mained a sentiment only, for he manifested no dis- 
position by word or act to interfere with slavery 
where it existed, but for the violent attempt to intro- 
duce slavery in Kansas and Nebraska upon the re- 
peal of the Missouri Compromise. Mr. Douglas, the 
author of the repeal, sought to justify his act by the 
claim that the Kansas-Nebraska act submitted the 
question of slavery to the people of those territories, 
when they should come to adopt a constitution and 
apply for admission into the Union as States. Upon 
the questions involved the debates between him and 
Mr. Lincoln occurred. 

There were comparatively few Abolitionists, in 
the strict sense of the term, in the State of Illinois. 
Their doctrines and pretensions were very unpop- 
ular. But a few years had gone by since Lovejoy 
was mobbed and killed at Alton, his press thrown 
into the river, and his murder passed unavenged ; 
and yet Lovejoy neither said nor published anything 
more hostile to slavery than Lincoln uttered in those 
debates. But Lovejoy was an avowed Abolitionist ; 
Lincoln was not. Mr. Douglas said at Freeport, in 
the northern part of the State, that Mr. Lincoln 
would not dare to speak at Carlisle, in the southern 



8o REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

part of the State, where they were soon to appear, 
in the same terms he did at Freeport. When they 
reached CarHsle, Mr. Lincoln referred to Mr. Doug- 
las's remark, and spoke in the same strain as before, 
and no one remonstrated. He could do this because 
the people believed he was entirely sincere. His ear- 
nest and gentle manners compelled them to respect 
and tolerate the freedom of speech. At Charleston 
he said : " Because I do not want and would not 
have a negro woman for a slave it does not follow 
that I want her for a wife." This expression illus- 
trates his aptness in enforcing an argument. A com- 
mittee from the convention sitting in Richmond, 
which finally passed the Virginia ordinance of seces- 
sion, went to Washington with the request that the 
President should order the evacuation by Major An- 
derson of Fort Sumter. During the colloquy which 
occurred between Mr. Lincoln and this committee, 
Mr. Lincoln said : 

" I understand you claim and believe yourselves 
to be Union men, that the Richmond Convention is 
opposed to a dissolution of the Union, and that you 
believe a majority of the people of the State want to 
remain in the Union." 

They said : " Yes." 

Then Mr. Lincoln replied : 

" I can't understand it at all ; Virginia wants to 
remain in the Union, and yet wants me to let South 



BY J. P. USHER. 8 I 

Carolina go out and the Union be dissolved, in order 
that Virginia may stay in." 

The masterly debates between Douglas and Lin- 
coln made Lincoln the nominee of the Republican 
Party for President at the Chicago Convention in 
i860, to the great disappointment of Mr. Seward 
and his supporters. The election came on, and re- 
sulted in the election of a majority of Republican 
electors ; but these electors did not receive a major- 
ity of the public vote by nearly a million of votes, 
which fact Mr. Lincoln often referred to during his 
administration. The Republican Party, as such, 
stood pledged to the maintenance, inviolate, of the 
rights of the States, and especially the right of each 
State to order and control its own domestic institu- 
tions according to its own judgment exclusively. 
To that pledge Mr. Lincoln determined rigorously 
to adhere, and if, during his administration, there 
was any seeming digression from that resolve, it was 
brought about and compelled by the exigencies of 
the war. In his first inaugural address he expressed 
himself as follows : 

" I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to in- 
terfere with the institution of slavery in the States 
where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to 
do so, and I have no inclination to do so." 

This, he said, was quoted from one of his former 
speeches, and, further, that the same sentiment 

6 



82 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

would be found in nearly all his public speeches. 
In the course of his address he said : 

" No State upon its own mere motion can lawfully 
get out of the Union ; resolves and ordinances to 
that effect are legally void, and acts of violence 
within any State or States, against the authority of 
the United States, are insurrectionary or revolution- 
ary, according to circumstances." 

Then. followed a declaration that, in his view of the 
Constitution and the laws, the Union was unbroken, 
and that to the extent of his ability he would take 
care that the laws of the Union be faithfully exe- 
cuted in all the States ; that there need be no blood- 
shed or violence in doing this, and that there would 
be none unless it was forced upon the national 
authority. It is needless to say that these pledges 
were kept. 

The frankness of this inaugural address, and the 
pledges contained in it, inspired the devotees of the 
Union in the North with the hope that peace would 
finally prevail. It is plain that Mr. Lincoln enter- 
tained such hope, and he had ample reason for it if 
he considered the popular vote. It was but fair to 
assume that the votes cast for Messrs. Douglas and 
Bell, with the fusion vote of Pennsylvania for Breck- 
inridge, w^ere, with but few exceptions, the votes of 
Union men. They, with the votes cast for him, 
amounted to nearly 4,000,000 votes, leaving only 



BY J. P. USHER. 8-5 

600,000 or 700,000 who voted for Breckinrido-e. 
who were for the most part disunionists. It was in- 
credible that these Union voters would join in a 
rebellion for the dissolution of the Union over the 
express pledge in the inaugural address that " the 
government will not assail you. You can have no 
conflict without being yourselves the aggressors." 

Mr. Bell was nominated as a Union man ; his sup- 
porters were Unionists of the strictest order ; at any 
rate they professed to be, and undoubtedly they 
were. But the mass of them were in the South, and 
more or less interested in the institution of slavery, 
and were inconsiderate enough to say during the 
canvass that if Mr. Lincoln should be elected, and 
should attempt to maintain the Union by force, they 
would, with the Breckinridge men, resist. When 
the war came, they felt the force of their pledge. 
They joined the rebellion, and, as was said at the 
time, they were generally placed in the front, and 
made to bear the brunt of the battle. 

During the canvass which terminated in the elec- 
tion of Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Douglas omitted no occa- 
sion to express his devotion to the preservation of 
the Union. He traversed the whole country, and in 
all his speeches left no room to doubt his determina- 
tion to stand by the government, no matter who was 
elected. The pledges then made he kept, and they 
were of immense value to the Union cause, and for 



84 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

them Mr. Lincoln never omitted to express his grati- 
fication and his obHgation to Mr. Douglas. 

In a retrospect of the scenes of those times, until 
the firing upon Fort Sumter, it must be apparent 
to all that good fortune attended Mr. Lincoln. The 
Secessionists dominated both Houses, and they had 
it in their power to prevent the counting of the elec- 
toral vote. They could have prevented his peaceful 
inauguration. It can hardly be supposed that Mr. 
Jefferson Davis would ever have permitted the can- 
vassing of the electoral vote, and the subsequent 
inauguration of Mr. Lincoln, by which, in the form 
prescribed by the Constitution, he was invested with 
the executive authority of the nation, if he had sup- 
posed Mr. Lincoln would have forcibly resisted the 
dissolution of the Union. In contemplating the 
awful crime of the rebellion, and the great destruc- 
tion of life which Mr. Davis, if he possessed the 
abilities which his friends ascribe to him, ought to 
have realized, how is his conduct to be accounted 
for in permitting the vote to be canvassed and Mr. 
Lincoln inaugurated? It is in vain to say that he 
failed to inaugurate anarchy because it was criminal, 
when he was preparing to enter upon a line of con- 
duct which he ought to have known, if persisted in, 
would within a very brief time lead to a destructive 
war. It adds nothing to his fame if, in charity, it be 
said that he expected a peaceful separation ; that 



BY J. P. USHER. 85 

the nation would voluntarily consent to a dissolution 
of the Union and to its own death. 

Mr. Seward was in the Senate with Mr. Davis in 
the last session of Congress of 1 860-1 861. He was 
satisfied that Mr, Davis believed there would be a 
peaceful dissolution of the Union ; that Davis ex- 
pected to be President of the Southern Confederacy- 
then already taking shape, and that Mr. Seward 
would be Secretary of State under Mr. Lincoln. 
Mr. Seward was apprehensive that Mr. Davis might 
inaugurate the rebellion before Mr. Lincoln was to 
be inaugurated — that he would resist the canvass- 
ing of the electoral vote, and this apprehension led 
to his famous Astor House speech. Mr. Seward 
afterward, at a dinner at Willard's Hotel, gave the 
following version of that affair. Referring to a 
speech that Mr. Oakey Hall had then lately made 
in the City of New York, he said : 

" Oakey Hall says I am the most august liar in the 
United States; that I said in the winter before the 
war. In a speech at the Astor House, that the trouble 
would all be over and everything settled in sixty 
days. I would have Mr, Oakey Hall to know that 
when I made that speech the electoral vote was not 
counted, and I knew it never would be if Jeff Davis 
believed there would be war. We both knew that 
he was to be President of the Southern Confederacy, 
and that I was to be Secretary of State under Mr. 



86 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Lincoln. I wanted the vote counted and Lincoln 
inaugurated. I had to deceive Davis, and I did it. 
That's why I said it would all be settled in sixty 
days." 

Whatever may have been the effect of Mr. Sew- 
ard's speech with respect to the counting of the elec- 
toral vote, it is certain that it was made with the sole 
object of securing the orderly and due canvass of the 
electoral vote and the peaceful inauguration of Mr. 
Lincoln. Mr. Seward deemed that all-important. 

The war was begun by the firing upon Fort Sum- 
ter. The pretext for making the war was that the 
institution of slavery in the seceding States was en- 
dangered by the Union. They ordained a form of 
government of which, in the language of Mr. Alex- 
ander Stephens, slavery was the chief corner-stone. 
It was apparent from the beginning that if the in- 
stitution of slavery was out of the way the Union 
would .have no foes. It was further apparent that 
if the so-called Border States would consent to forego 
slavery, the States which had already confederated 
would be relatively so weak that they would abandon 
the rebellion which they had inaugurated. Mr. Lin- 
coln sought to have the Border States accept com- 
pensation for the slaves held in those States, but 
failed to accomplish his object, and the war went on. 

To the committee from the Richmond Convention, 
before referred to, he said that if the convention then 



BY J. P. USHER. 87 

in session at Richmond would resolve that Virginia 
would adhere to the Union under any and all circum- 
stances, and thereupon adjourn sine die, he would 
order the evacuation of Fort Sumter. In speaking 
of this some two or three years thereafter, he said : 

" I made the proposition, believing that if Vir- 
ginia adhered to the Union in good faith the Border 
Slave States would stand with Virginia firmly for 
the Union, and that the Secessionists would soon 
discover that their rebellion could not be successful 
and war would be avoided." 

Upon the closest scrutiny of the administration of 
Mr. Lincoln, it will be found that his paramount ob- 
ject was the preservation of the Union ; and to en- 
force in all the States the laws of the Unites States 
he found it necessary to assault the institution of 
slavery, it was because he deemed it necessary to 
carry out his principal object ; all which was tersely 
expressed in his letter to Mr. Greeley, that he would 
preserve the Union if it could be done without free- 
ing any slaves. 

" And if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I 
would do it — and if I could save it by freeing some 
and leaving others alone I would also do that." 

Mr. Greeley was evidently dissatisfied with the ex- 
planation of Mr. T^incoln, and the Tribune teemed 
with complaints and criticisms of his administration, 
which very much annoyed him ; so much so that he 



gg REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

requested Mr. Greeley to come to Washington and 
make known in person his complaints, to the end 
that they might be obviated if possible. The man- 
ao-incT editor of the Tribune came. Mr. Lincoln 
said : 

"You complain of me. What have I done or 
omitted to do which has provoked the hostility of 
the Tribune ? " 

The reply was : " You should issue a proclamation 
abolishing slavery." 

Mr. Lincoln answered: "Suppose I do that. 
There are now 20,000 of our muskets on the shoul- 
ders of Kentuckians, who are bravely fighting our 
battles. Every one of them will be thrown down or 
carried over to the rebels." 

The reply was : " Let them do it. The cause of 
the Union will be stronger if Kentucky should se- 
cede with the rest than it is now." 

Mr. Lincoln answered : " Oh, I can't think that! " 

No matter to what political party any man had 
been attached, if he was in good faith for the main- 
tenance of the Union he had the confidence of Mr. 
Lincoln. During his administration he recognized 
but two parties, one for the Union and the other 
against it. He repelled no one ; he strove to make 
friends, not for himself so much as for the preserva- 
tion of the government, and seeing clearly from the 
beginning that property in slaves was in the way of 



BY J. P. USHER. 89 

many, he urged them to accept compensation. His 
wisdom and foresight is now apparent to all. If the 
Border States would have accepted compensation 
for slaves, or if Virginia had adhered to the Union, 
there would have been no war, and slavery would 
have been abolished by agreement and compensa- 
tion. 

Mr. Lincoln in his inaugural said to the malcon- 
tents : 

" Suppose you go to war, you cannot fight always; 
and when after much loss on both sides, and no gain 
on either, you cease fighting, the Identical old ques- 
tions as to terms of intercourse are again upon you." 

Failing to bring about the emancipation of the 
slaves in the Border States by agreement and com- 
pensation, Mr. Lincoln set about the restoration of 
government in the States in rebellion. On the 8th 
of December, 1863, he issued his Proclamation of 
Amnesty. By that proclamation it was declared that 
whenever in any of the seceding States a number of 
persons, not less than one-tenth in number of the 
votes cast in such State at the Presidential election 
of i860, shall have taken the oath required, and not 
violated it, and being qualified voters by the elec- 
tion law of the State existing immediately before the 
so-called Act of Secession, and excluding all others, 
shall re-establish a State government which shall be 
Republican, such shall be recognized as the true gov- 



90 



REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



ernment of the State, and be protected by the United 
States, as a State, against invasion and domestic vio- 
lence. It will be observed that the persons who 
were authorized to re-establish a State government 
were to be qualified voters of the State before seces- 
sion. Mr. Chase insisted that this paragraph of the 
proclamation should be changed, and the word citi- 
zens inserted in the place of qualified voters. The 
Attorney-General had given an opinion to Mr. Chase, 
November 29, 1862, that colored men born in the 
United States were citizens of the United States. 
That was the law of Mr. Lincoln's administration, 
so that if he had adopted the views of Mr. Chase 
the tenth in number necessary to organize a State 
might have been legally composed of colored men. 
There was no argument upon this proposition. Mr. 
Chase insisted. Mr. Seward quietly observed : " I 
think it is very well as it is." Mr. Lincoln made no 
reply. 

There is abundant evidence, however, proving that 
Mr. Lincoln had no thought of restoring State gov- 
ernments in seceded States through any other instru- 
mentality than by the qualified voters of those States 
before secession was inaugurated. 

It was the purpose of the President to issue a 
proclamation looking to the emancipation of slaves 
during the summer of 1862, but in consequence of 
the unexpected misadventure of General McClellan 



BY J. P. USHER. Q I 

in the Peninsula before Richmond, it was considered 
prudent to delay the proclamation until some decis- 
ive advantage should be gained by the armies in the 
field. Accordingly, soon after the battle of Antie- 
tam, the first Proclamation of Emancipation was 
made. By that, one hundred days were given the 
States in rebellion to resume their normal condition 
in the government. In the preparation of the final 
Proclamation of Emancipation, of January i, 1863, 
Mr. Lincoln manifested great solicitude. He had his 
original draft printed, and furnished each member of 
his Cabinet with a copy, with the request that each 
should examine, criticise, and suggest any amend- 
ments that occurred to them. At the next meeting 
of the Cabinet, Mr. Chase said : 

" This paper is of the utmost importance, greater 
than any state paper ever made by this government. 
A paper of so much importance, and involving the 
liberties of so many people, ought, I think, to make 
some reference to Deity. I do not observe anything 
of the kind in it." 

Mr. Lincoln said : 

" No ; I overlooked it. Some reference to Deity 
must be inserted. Mr. Chase, won't you make a 
draft of what you think ought to be inserted ? " 

Mr. Chase promised to do so, and at the next 
meeting presented the following : 

" And upon this Act, sincerely believed to be an 



92 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LIN COIN 

act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon 
military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment 
of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty 
God." 

When Mr. Lincoln read the paragraph, Mr. Chase 
said: "You may not approve it, but I thought this 
or something like it would be appropriate." 

Lincoln replied : "I do approve it ; it cannot be 
bettered, and I will adopt it in the very words you 
have written." 

When the parts of the proclamation containing 
the exception from its operation of States and parts 
of States were considered, Mr. Montgomery Blair 
spoke of the importance of the proclamation as a 
state paper, and said that persons in after times, in 
seekinof correct information of the occurrences of 
those times, would read and wonder why the thirteen 
parishes and the City of New Orleans in Louisiana, 
and the counties in Virginia about Norfolk, were 
excepted from the proclamation ; they were in 
the " very heart and back of slavery," and unless 
there was some good reason which was then un- 
known to him, he hoped they would not be ex- 
cepted. 

Mr. Seward said : " I think so, too ; I think they 
should not be excepted." 

Mr. Lincoln replied : " Well, upon first view your 
objections are clearly good ; but after I issued the 



BY J. P. USHER. 93 

proclamation of September 22, Mr. Bouligny, of 
Louisiana, then here, came to see me. He was a 
great invalid, and had scarcely the strength to walk 
up stairs. He wanted to know of me if these par- 
ishes in Louisiana and New Orleans should hold an 
election, and elect Members of Congress, whether I 
would not except them from this proclamation. I 
told him I would." 

Continuing, he said : " No, I did not do that in so 
many words ; if he was here now he could not re- 
peat any words I said which would amount to an 
absolute promise. But I know he understood me 
that way, and that is just the same to me. They 
have elected members, and they are here now, 
Union men, ready to take their seats, and they have 
elected a Union man from the Norfolk district." 

Mr. Blair said : " If you have a promise out, I will 
not ask you to break it." 

Seward said : " No, no. We would not have you 
do that." 

Mr. Chase then said : " Very true, they have 
elected Hahn and Flanders, but they have not yet 
got their seats, and it is not certain that they will." 

Mr. Lincoln rose from his seat, apparently irri- 
tated, and walked rapidly back and forth, across the 
room. Lookinor over his shoulder at Mr. Chase, he 
said : " There it is, sir. I am to be bullied by Con- 
gress, am I ? If I do I'll be durned." 



94 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Nothinof more was said. A month or more there- 
after Hahn and Flanders were admitted to their 
seats. 

The only differences in the Cabinet were upon 
this very question. Mr. Lincoln adhered strictly to 
the opinions expressed in his inaugural : that the re- 
solves and ordinances of secession were void ; that 
the insurgent States were never out of the Union; 
that all that was necessary for them or the people of 
those States to do was to lay down their arms and 
cease fighting, acknowledge the Constitution and 
laws of the United States, and conform to their re- 
quirements. Mr. Chase, with a great many other 
Union men, had a different view of that subject, the 
discussion of which is not now important, further 
than to state that they held that Congress had the 
right and power to enact such laws for the govern- 
ment of the people of those States as they might 
deem expedient for the public safety, including the 
bestowal of suffrage upon negroes. Mr. Lincoln 
thought that suffrage, if it ever came to the negroes, 
should come in other ways. In his Amnesty Procla- 
mation of December 8, 1863, will be found a fair 
indication of his mind concerning the freed people. 
He said that any provision by such State " which 
shall recognize and declare their permanent freedom, 
provide for their education, and which may yet be 
consistent, as a temporary arrangement, with their 



BY J. P. USHER. 95 

present condition as a laboring, landless, and home- 
less class, will not be objected to by the national 
executive." 

In all his state papers and writings to that date 
there can be found no assertion that he intended to 
force negro suffrage upon the people of the slave- 
holding States. Doubtless he contemplated that 
some time in the future suffragfe would be volun- 
tarily yielded to the blacks by the people of those 
States. From all that could be gathered by those 
who observed his conduct in those times, it seemed 
that his hope was that the people in the insurgent 
States, upon exercising authority under the Consti- 
tution and laws of the United States, necessarily 
recognizing the extinction of slavery, would find it 
necessary to make suitable provision, not only for 
the education of the freedmen, as specified in his 
Amnesty Proclamation, but also for the acquisition 
' of property, and its security in their possession; and, 
to insure that, would find it necessary and expedient 
to bestow suffrage upon them in some degree at least. 
We have some evidence that such was his expecta- 
tion and hope. In a letter to Governor Hahn, con- 
gratulating him upon having his name fixed in his- 
tory as the first Free State Governor of Louisiana, 
he said : 

" Now, you are about to have a conventioA, 
which, among other things, will probably define the 



96 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

elective franchise. I barely suggest for your private 
consideration whether some of the colored people 
may not be let in — as, for instance, the very intelli- 
gent, and especially those who have fought gallantly 
in our ranks. They would probably help, in some 
trying time to come, to keep the jewel of liberty 
within the family of freedom. But this is only a 
suggestion — not to the public, but to you alone." 

It was apparent to all who bore intimate relations 
with Mr. Lincoln, that, foreseeing the termination 
of the war by the submission of the insurgents, his 
mind was seriously affected in contemplation of the 
new responsibilities which would devolve upon him. 
His speech grew more grave, and his aspect more 
serious. His second inaugural address was a faith- 
ful mirror of his mind. He seemed to be oppressed 
with a great care, conscious that changes were about 
to occur which would impose upon him new duties 
in which he might possibly find himself in conflict 
with many of the public men who had supported the 
government in the war. There seemed to be as 
many minds as there were men, and in a majority of 
cases inclined to adhere to their own opinions, with- 
out regard to the opinions of Mr. Lincoln or any one 
else ; yet he felt that the responsibility all rested 
upon him. 

A short time before the capitulation of General 
Lee, General Grant had told him that the war must 



BY J. P. USHER. gy 

necessarily soon come to an end, and wanted to 
know of him whether he should try to capture Jeff 
Davis, or let him escape from the country if he 
would. He said : 

" About that, I told him the story of an Irishman 
who had taken the pledge of Father Mathew. He 
became terribly thirsty, and applied to a bartender 
for a lemonade, and while it was being prepared he 
whispered to him, 'And couldn't ye put a little brandy 
in it all unbeknown to meself ? ' I told Grant if he 
could let Jeff Davis escape all unbeknown to him- 
self, to let him go. I didn't want him." 

When he returned from the James, where he met 
Messrs. Stephens, Campbell, and Hunter, he related 
some of his conversations with them. He said that 
at the conclusion of one of his discourses, detailing 
what he considered to be the position in which the 
insurgents were placed by the law, they replied : 

"Well, according to your view of the case we are 
all guilty of treason, and liable to be hanged." 

Lincoln replied : 

"Yes, that is so." 

They, continuing, said : 

" Well, we suppose that would necessarily be your 
view of our case, but we never had much fear of being 
hanged while you were President." 

From his manner in repeating this scene he seemed 
to appreciate the compliment highly. There is no 

7 



q8 reminiscences of ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

evidence in his record that he ever contemplated 
executincr any of the insurgents for their treason. 
There is no evidence that he desired any of them to 
leave the country, with the exception of Mr. Davis. 
His great, and apparently his only object, was to 
have a restored Union. Soon after his return from 
the James, the Cabinet was convened, and he read 
to it for approval a message which he had prepared 
to be submitted to Congress, in which he recom- 
mended that Congress appropriate $300,000,000, to 
be apportioned among the several slave States, in 
proportion to slave population, to be distributed to 
the holders of slaves in those States upon condition 
that they would consent to the abolition of slavery, 
the disbanding of the insurgent army, and would 
acknowledge and submit to the laws of the United 
States. 

The members of the Cabinet were all opposed. 
He seemed somewhat surprised at that, and asked : 
" How long will the war last?" No one answered, 
but he soon said : " A hundred days. We are spend- 
ing now in carrying on the war $3,000,000 a day, 
which will amount to all this money, besides all the 
lives." 

With a deep sigh he added : " But you are all op- 
posed to me, and I will not send the message." 

From time to time persons, probably desiring to 
extol and magnify Mr. Lincoln, have represented 



BY J. P. USHER. 99 

that he was, during the war, frequently discouraged 
and quite in despair. About nothing in his career 
has he been more misrepresented than by these 
persons in this matter. There was never an hour 
during all the war in which he had any doubt of the 
ultimate success of the Union arms. He was often 
disappointed, and grieved at the disappointment. He 
expected that McClellan would be successful on the 
Peninsula, and afterward that he would follow up his 
victory at Antietam, and that Meade would follow 
up his at Gettysburg; and in speaking of that battle 
and the omission of Meade to pursue and fight, he 
said : 

" He did so well at Gettysburg that I cannot com- 
plain of him." 

As to Grant, after the Vicksburg campaign he 
never expressed a doubt of his success nor seemed to 
have the slightest apprehension that disaster would 
overtake him. 

Persons may have fallen into the error of suppos- 
ing that he was dejected and discouraged from his 
appearance in repose. When not engaged in con- 
versation his countenance wore a sad expression, 
but that was no index of the operation of his mind. 
Chief among his great characteristics were his gen- 
tleness and humanity, and yet he did not hesitate 
promptly to approve the sentences of Kennedy and 
Beall. 



lOO REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

During the entire war there are but few other evi- 
dences to be found of a wilHngness on his part that 
any one should suffer the penalty of death. His 
great effort seemed to be to find some excuse, some 
palliation for offences charged. He strove at all 
times to relieve the citizens on both sides of the in- 
conveniences and hardships resulting from the war. 
It has often been reported that Secretary of War 
Stanton arbitrarily refused to carry out his orders. 
In all such cases reported it will be found that the 
President had given directions to him to issue per- 
mits to persons who had applied to go through the 
lines into the insurgent districts. The President said 
at one time, referring to Stanton's refusal to issue 
the permits and the severe remarks made by the per- 
sons who were disobliged : 

" I cannot always know whether a permit ought to 
be granted, and I want to oblige everybody when I 
can. and Stanton and I have an understanding that 
if I send an order to him that cannot be consistently 
granted, he is to refuse it, which he sometimes does; 
and that led to a remark which I made the other 
day to a man who complained of Stanton, that I 
hadn't much influence with this administration, but 
expected to have more with the next." 

J. P. USHER. 



VI. 

George S. Boutwell. 

WHEN Anson Burlingame was in this country 
the last time he gave me an account of his 
life in China, his relations with the principal person- 
ages there, and said, finally, " When I die they will 
erect monuments and temples to my memory. How- 
ever much I may now protest, they will do that." 
This, we are told, the people and government of 
China have done. 

Gratitude to public benefactors is the common 
sentiment of mankind. It has found expression in 
every age ; it finds expression in every condition 
of society. Monuments and temples seem to belong 
to the age of art rather than to the age of letters, 
but reflection teaches us that letters cannot fully 
express the obligations of the learned, even to their 
chief benefactors, and only in a less degree can epi- 
taphs, essays and histories satisfy those who have 
not the opportunity and culture to read and under- 
stand them. Moreover, monuments and temples in 
honor of the dead express the sentiments of their 



I02 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

contemporaries who survive ; and the sentiments of 
contemporaries, when freed from passion, crystallize, 
usually, into opinion — the fixed, continuing opinion of 
mankind. Napoleon must ever remain great ; Wash- 
ington, good and great; Burke, the first of English 
orators ; the younger Pitt, the chief of English states- 
men ; and Henry the Eighth, a dark character in 
British history. Time and reflection, the competing 
fame of new and illustrious men, the antiquarian 
and the critic, may modify the first-formed opinion, 
but seldom or never is it changed. The judgment 
rendered at the grave is a just judgment usually, 
but whether so or not it is not often disturbed. 

The fame of noble men is at once the most en- 
dearing and the most valuable public possession. 
Of the distant past it is all of value that remains; 
and of the recent past, the verdant fields, the vil- 
lages, cities and institutions of culture and govern- 
ment are only monuments which men of that past 
have reared to their own fame. History is but the 
account of men : the earth, even, is but a mighty 
theater on which human actors, great and small, 
have played their parts. Superior talents and favor- 
ing circumstances have secured for a few persons 
that special recognition called immortality ; that is, 
a knowledge of qualities and actions attributed to 
an individual whose name is preserved and trans- 
mitted, with that knowledge, from one generation to 



BY GEORGE S. BOUTWELL. yOX 

another. This immortaHty may be nothing to the 
dead, but the record furnishes examples and in- 
spiring facts, especially for the young, by which they 
are encouraged and stimulated to lead lives worthy 
of the illustrious men of the past. Herein is the 
value, and the chief value, of monuments, temples, 
histories and panegyrics. If the highest use of 
sinners is, by their evil lives and bad examples, to 
keep saints to their duty, so it is also that the im- 
mortality accorded to those who were scourges 
rather than benefactors serves as a warning to men 
who strive to write their names upon the page of 
history. But the world really cherishes only the 
memory of those who were good as well as great, 
and hence it is the effort of panegyrists and hero- 
worshipers to place their idols in that attitude be- 
fore mankind. The immortal few are those who 
have identified themselves with contests and prin- 
ciples in which men of all times are interested ; or 
who have so expressed the wish or thought or pur- 
pose of mankind, that their words both enliehten 
and satisfy the thoughtful of every age. When we 
consider how much is demanded of aspirants for 
lasting fame, we can understand the statement that 
that century is rich which adds more than one name 
to the short list of persons who in an historical 
sense are immortal. In that sense those only are 
immortal whose fame passes beyond the country, 



I04 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

beyond the race, beyond the language, beyond the 
century, and far outspreads all knowledge of the de- 
tails of local and national history. 

The empire of Japan sent accredited to the United 
States as its first minister resident, Ari Nori Mori, a 
young man of extraordinary ability, and then only 
twenty-four years of age. A few months before 
Japan was opened to intercourse with other nations, 
an elder brother of Mori lived for a time as a student 
at Jeddo, the capital of the empire. Upon his return 
to his home in the country he informed the family 
that he had heard of a new and distant nation of 
which Washington, the greatest and best of men, 
was the founder, savior and father. Beyond this he 
had heard little of the country or the man, but this 
brief statement so inspired the younger brother to 
know more of the man and of the country, that he 
resolved to leave his native land without delay, and 
in disobedience both to parental rule and public law. 
In this single fact we see what fame is in its largest 
sense, and we realize also the power of a single 
character to influence others even where there is no 
tie of country, of language, of race, or any except 
that which gives unity to the whole family of man. 
If, then, the acquisition of fame in a large sense be 
so difficult, is it wise thus to present the subject to 
the young ? May they not be deterred from those 
manly efforts which are the prerequisites to success -^ 



BY GEORGE S. BOUTWELL. 



105 



I answer, Fame is not a proper object of human 
effort, and its pursuit is the most unwise of human 
undertakings. I am not now moraHzing ; I am try- 
ing to state the account as a worldly transaction. 
Moreover, there is a distinction between the fame of 
which I have spoken and contemporaneous rec- 
ognition of one's capacity and fitness to perform 
important private or pubHc service. This is repu- 
tation rather than fame, and it well may be sought 
by honorable effort, and it should be prized by every 
one as an object of virtuous ambition. Success, 
however, is not so often gained by direct effort as by 
careful, systematic, thorough preparation for duty. 
The world is not so loaded with genius, nor even 
with talent, that opportunities are wanting for all 
those who have capacity for public service. 

Mr. Bancroft gave voice to the considerate judg- 
ment of mankind when, in conversation, he said, 
"Beyond question, General Washington, intellectually, 
is the first of Americans." If this statement be open 
to question, the question springs from the limita- 
tion, for beyond doubt Washington is the first of 
Americans. His pre-eminence, his greatness, appear 
in the fact that his faculties and powers vv^ere so 
fully developed, so evenly adjusted and nicely bal- 
anced, that in all the various and difificult duties of 
military and civil life he never for an instant failed 
to meet the demand which his position and the at- 



I06 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

tendant circumstances made upon him. This was 
the opinion of his contemporaries. His pre-emi- 
nence was felt and recognized by the leaders of the 
savage tribes of America, by the most sagacious 
statesmen and wisest observers in foreign lands, and 
by all of his countrymen who were able to escape 
the influence of passion and to consider passing 
events in the light of pure reason. 

It is the glory of Washington that he was the 
first great military chief who did not exhibit the mili- 
tary spirit ; and in this he has given to his country 
an example and a rule of the highest value. The 
problem of republics is to develop military capacity 
without fostering the military spirit. This Wash- 
ington did in himself, and this also his country has 
done. The zeal of the young men of the Republic 
to enter the military service for the defense of the 
Union, and the satisfaction with which they accepted 
peace and returned to the employments of peace, all 
in obedience to the example of Washington, are his 
highest praise. 

Washington was also an illustration of the axiom 
in o-overnment, that the faculties and qualities essen- 
tial to a military leader are the highest endowments 
of a ruler in time of peace ; and the instincts of men 
are in harmony with this historic and philosophic 
truth. The time that has passed, since the public 
career and natural life of Washington ended, has 



BY GEORGE S. BOUTWELL. lO/ 

not dimmed the luster of his fame, nor qualified In 
the least that general judgment on which he was 
raised to an equality with the most renowned per- 
sonages of ancient and modern times. 

With this estimate, not an unusual nor an exag- 
o-erated estimate, I venture to claim for Abraham 
Lincoln the place next to Washington, whether we 
have regard to private character, to intellectual qual- 
ities, to public services, or to the weight of obligation 
laid upon the country and upon mankind. Between 
Washington and Lincoln there were two full gen- 
erations of men ; but, of them all, I see not one who 
can be compared with either. 

Submitting this opinion, in advance of all evidence, 
I proceed to deal with those qualities, opportunities, 
characteristics and services on which Lincoln's claim 
rests for the broad and most enduring fame of which 
I have spoken. We are attracted naturally by the 
career of a man who has passed from the humblest 
condition In early life to stations of honor and fame 
in maturer years. With Lincoln this space was the 
broadest possible in civilized life. His childhood was 
spent in a cabin upon a mud floor, and his youth and 
early manhood were checkered with more than the 
usual share of vicissitudes and disappointments. The 
chief blessing of his early life was his step-mother, 
Sally Bush, who, by her affectionate treatment and 
wise conduct, did much to elevate the character of the 



I08 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

class of women to which she belonged. His oppor- 
tunities for training in the schools were few, and his 
hours of study were limited. The books that he 
could obtain were read and re-read, and a grammar 
and geometry were his constant companions for a 
time; but his means of education bore no logical 
relation to the position he finally reached as a 
thinker, writer and speaker. Lincoln is a witness, 
for the man William Shakespeare, against those hos- 
tile and illogical critics who deny to him the author- 
ship of the plays that bear his name because they 
cannot comprehend the way of reaching such results 
without the aid of books, teachers and universities. 
When they show similar results reached by the aid 
of books, teachers and universities, or even by their 
aid chiefly, they will then have one fact tending 
to prove that such results cannot be reached with- 
out such aids ; but in the absence of the proof we 
must accept Shakespeare and Lincoln, and confess 
our ignorance of the processes by which their great- 
ness was attained. 

Books, schools and universities are helps to all, 
and they are needed by each and all in the ratio of 
the absence of natural capacity. By the processes of 
reason employed to show that Shakespeare did not 
write Hamlet, it may be proved that Lincoln did not 
compose the speech which he pronounced at Gettys- 
burg. The parallel between Shakespeare and Lin- 



BY GEORGE S. BOUTIVELL. IO9 

coin is good to this extent. The products of the pen 
of Lincoln Imply a degree of culture In schools which 
he never had, and a process of reasoning upon that 
implication leads to the conclusion that he was not 
the author of what bears his name. We know that 
this conclusion would be false, and we may therefore 
question the soundness of a similar process of rea- 
soning In the case of Shakespeare. 

The world gives too much credit to self-made men. 
Not much Is due to those who are so largely endowed 
by nature that they at once outrun their contempo- 
raries who are always on the crutches of books and 
authorities, and but a little more is due to the lar- 
ger class who in Isolation and privation acquire the 
knowledge that is gained, usually, only in the schools. 
In the end, however, we judge the man as a whole 
and as a result, for there Is no trustworthy analysis by 
which we can decide how much Is due to nature, how 
much to personal effort, and how much to circum- 
stances. Of all the self-made men of America, Lin- 
coln owed least to books, schools, and society. Wash- 
ington owed much to these, and all his self-assertion, 
which was considerable, In society, in the army, and 
in civil affairs, was the assertion of a trained man. 
Lincoln asserted nothing but his capacity, when it 
was his duty to decide what was wise and what was 
right. He claimed nothing for himself, in his per- 
sonal character, in the nature of deference from 



I lO REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Others, and too little, perhaps, for the great office 
he held. The schools create nothing ; they only 
brinor out what is ; but as lono- as the mass of man- 
kind think otherwise, an untrained person like Lin- 
coln has an immense advantage over the scholar in 
the contest for immortality. In this particular, how- 
ever, the instincts of men have a large share of wis- 
dom in them. When we speak of human greatness 
M^e mean natural, innate faculty and power. We 
distinguish the gift of God from the culture of the 
schools. The unlearned give the schools too much 
credit in the work of developing power and forming 
character ; the learned, perhaps, give them too little. 
But whether judged by the learned or the unlearned, 
Lincoln is the most commanding figure in the ranks 
of self-made men which America has yet produced. 

Mr. Lincoln possessed the almost divine faculty of 
interpreting the will of the people without any ex- 
pression by them. We often hear of the influence 
of the atmosphere of Washington upon the public 
men residing there. It never affected him. He 
was of all men most independent of locality and 
social influences. He was wholly self-contained in 
all that concerned his opinions upon public ques- 
tions and in all his judgments of the popular will. 
Conditions being given, he could anticipate the 
popular will and conduct. When the proceedings 
of the convention of dissenting Republicans, which 



BY GEORGE S. BOUT WELL. m 

assembled at Cleveland in 1864, were mentioned to 
him and his opinion sought, he told the story of two 
fresh Irishmen who attempted to find a tree-toad 
that they heard in the forest, and how, after a fruit- 
less hunt, one of them consoled himself and his com- 
panion with the expression, " An' faith it was noth- 
ing but a noise." 

Mr. Lincoln's goodness of nature was boundless. 
In childhood it showed itself in unfeigned aversion 
to every form of cruelty to animal life. When he 
was President it found expression in that memorable 
letter to Mrs. Bixby of Boston, who had given, irre- 
vocably given, as was then supposed, five sons to the 
country. The letter was dated November 21, 1864, 
before the excitement of his second election was 
over: 

" Dear Madam : — I have been shown, in the files of 
the War Department, a statement, of the Adjutant- 
General of Massachusetts, that you are the mother 
of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of 
battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any 
words of mine which should attempt to beguile you 
from a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain 
from tendering to you the consolation that may be 
found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. 
1 pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the 
anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the 
cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the sol- 



I I 2 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

emn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly 
a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom. 

" Yours, very sincerely and respectfully, 

"ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

" To Mrs. Bixby, Boston, Massachusetts." 

I imagine that all history and all literature may 
be searched, and in vain, for a funeral tribute so 
touching, so comprehensive, so fortunate in expres- 
sion as this. 

If we have been moved to laughter by a simple 
story and to tears by a pathetic strain, we can under- 
stand what Lincoln was to all, and especially to the 
common people who were his fellows in everything 
except his greatness, when he moved, spoke, and 
acted among them. It would be a reflection upon 
the human race if men did not recognize something 
worthy of enduring fame in one whose kindness and 
sympathy were so comprehensive as to include the 
insect on the one side and the noble, but bereaved, 
mother on the other. To the soldier. General 
Thomas was " Old Holdfast," General Hooker was 
" Fighting Joe," and Mr. Lincoln was *' Father Abra- 
ham." These names were due to personal qualities 
which the soldiers observed, admired and applauded. 
Mr. Lincoln was a mirth-making, genial, melancholy 
man. By these characteristics he enlisted sympathy 
for himself at once, while his moral qualities and 
intellectual pre-eminence commanded respect. Mr. 



BY GEORGE S. BOUTIVELL. 113 

Lincoln's wit and mirth will give him a passport to 
the thoughts and hearts of millions who would take 
no interest in the sterner and more practical parts of 
his character. He used his faculties for mirth and 
wit to relieve the melancholy of his life, to parry 
unwelcome inquiries, and, in the debates of politics 
and the bar, to worry his opponents. In debate he 
often so combined wit, satire and statement that his 
opponent at once appeared ridiculous and illogical. 
Mr. Douglas was often the victim of these sallies in 
the great debate for the Senate before the people of 
Illinois, and before the people of the country, in the 
year 1858. Douglas constantly asserted that abolition 
would be followed by amalgamation, and that the 
Republican party designed to repeal the laws of 
Illinois which prohibited the marriage of blacks and 
whites. This was a formidable appeal, to the prej- 
udices of the people of Southern Illinois especially. 
" I protest now and forever," said Lincoln, " against 
that counterfeit logic which presumes that because I 
did not want a negro woman for a slave, I do, neces- 
sarily, want her for a wife. I have never had the least 
apprehension that I or my friends would marry 
negroes if there were no law to keep them from it, 
but as Judge Douglas and his friends seem to be in 
great apprehension that they might, if there were 
no law to keep them from it, I give him the most sol- 
emn pledge that I will to the very last stand by the 



I 1 4 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

law of this State, which forbids the marrying of white 
people with negroes." 

Thus in two sentences did Mr. Lincoln overthrow 
Douglas in his logic and render him ridiculous in his 
position. Douglas claimed special credit for the de- 
feat of the Lecompton bill, although five-sixths of 
the votes were given by the Republican Party. Said 
Lincoln : " Why is he entitled to more credit than 
others for the performance of that good act, unless 
there was something in the antecedents of the Re- 
publicans that might induce every one to expect them 
to join in that good work, and, at the same time, lead- 
ing them to doubt that he would. Does he place 
his superior claim to credit on the ground that he 
performed a good act which was never expected of 
him?" He then gave Mr. Douglas the benefit of a 
specific application of the parable of the lost sheep. 

In the last debate at Alton, October 15, 1858, 
Mr, Douglas proceeded to show that Buchanan was 
guilty of gross inconsistencies of position, Lincoln 
did not defend Buchanan, but after he had stated 
the fact that Douglas had been on both sides of the 
Missouri Compromise, he added: *T want to know 
if Buchanan has not as much right to be inconsistent 
as Douglas has ? Has Douglas the exclusive right 
in this country of being on all sides of all questions ? 
Is nobody allowed that high privilege but himself? 
Is he to have an entire monopoly on that subject?" 



BY GEORGE S. BOUT WELL. II5 

There are three methods in debate of sustaining 
and enforcing opinions, and the faculty and facihty 
of usinor these several methods are the tests of in- 
tellectual quality in writers and speakers. First, 
and lowest intellectually, are those who rely upon 
authority. They gather and marshal the sayings 
of their predecessors, and ask their hearers and 
readers to indorse the positions taken, not because 
they are reasonable and right under the process of 
demonstration, but because many persons in other 
times have thought them to be right and reasonable. 
As this is the work of the mere student, and does 
not imply either philosophy or the faculty of reason- 
ing, those who rely exclusively upon authority are in 
the third class of intellectual men. Next, and of a 
much higher order, are the writers and speakers 
who state the facts of a case, apply settled prin- 
ciples to them, and by sound processes of reasoning 
maintain the position taken. But high above all 
are the men who by statement pure and simple, or 
by statement argumentative, carry conviction to 
thoughtful minds. Unquestionably Mr. Lincoln be- 
longs to this class. Those who remember Douglas's 
theory in regard to " squatter sovereignty," which 
he sometimes dignified by calling it the " sacred 
right of self-government," will appreciate the force 
of Lincoln's statement of the scheme in these 
words: "The phrase, 'sacred right of self-govern- 



Il6 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

ment,* though expressive of the only rightful basis 
of any government, was so perverted in the at- 
tempted use of it as to amount to just this : TJiat 
if any one man choose to enslave anothe7% no third 
man shall be allowed to object.'' 

In the field of argumentative statement, Mr. 
Webster, at the time of his death, had had no rival 
in America ; but he has left nothing more exact, 
explicit, and convincing than this extract from 
Lincoln's first speech of the great debate. Here is 
a statement in less than twenty words. If any one 
man choose to enslave another, no third man shall be 
allowed to object, which embodies the substance of 
the opinion of the Supreme Court of the United 
States in the case of Dred Scott, the theory of the 
Kansas-Nebraska bill, and exposes the sophistry 
which Douglas had woven into his arguments on 
" squatter sovereignty." 

Douglas constantly appealed to the prejudices of 
the people, and arrayed them against the doctrine 
of negro equality. Lincoln, in reply, after asserting 
their equality under the Declaration of Independ- 
ence, added: "In the right to eat the bread, with- 
out the leave of anybody else, which his own hand 
earns, he is my equal, and the equal of Judge 
Douglas, and the equal of every living man." 
Douglas often said — and he commanded the cheers 
of his supporters when he said it — " I do not care 



BY GEORGE S. BOUTWELL. 



117 



whether slavery is voted up or voted down." In his 
final speech at Alton, Lincoln reviewed the history 
of the churches and of the government in connection 
with slavery, and he then asked : " Is it not a false 
statesmanship that undertakes to build up a system 
of policy upon the basis of caring nothing about the 
very thing that everybody does care the most 
about ? " He then, in the same speech, assailed 
Douglas's position in an argument, which is but a 
series of statements, and, as a whole, it is, in its logic 
and moral sentiment, the equal of anything in the 
language: "He may say he doesn't care whether an 
indifferent thing is voted up or down, but he must 
logically have a choice between a right thing and a 
wrong thing. He contends that whatever commu- 
nity wants slaves has a right to have them. So they 
have, if it is not a wrong. But if it is a wrong, he 
cannot say people have a right to do wrong. He 
says that, upon the score of equality, slaves should 
be allowed to go into a new territory like other 
property. This is strictly logical, if there is no dif- 
ference between it and other property. If it and 
other property are equal, his argument is entirely 
logical. But if you insist that one is wrong and the 
other right, there is no use to institute a com- 
parison between right and wrong. You may turn 
over everything in the Democratic policy from be- 
ginning to end — whether in the shape it takes on 



1 I 8 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

the statute-book, in the shape it takes in the Dred 
Scott decision, in the shape it takes in conversation, 
or in the shape it takes in short maxim-like argu- 
ments — it everywhere carefully excludes the idea 
that there is anything wrong in it. That is the real 
issue. That is the issue that will continue in this 
country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas 
and myself shall be silent. It is the eternal strug- 
gle between these two principles, right and wrong, 
throughout the world. They are the two principles 
that have stood face to face from the beginning of 
time, and will ever continue to struggle. The one 
is the common right of humanity; and the other, the 
divine right of kings. It is the same principle in 
whatever shape it develops itself. It is the same 
spirit that says, * You work and toil and earn bread, 
and I'll eat it.' No matter in what shape it comes, 
whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to 
bestride the people of his own nation and live by 
the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as 
an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same 
tyrannical principle." 

To the Democrat who admitted that slavery was 
a wrong, Mr. Lincoln addressed himself thus : "You 
never treat it as a wrong. You must not say any- 
thing about it in the free States, because // is not 
here. You must not say anything about in the slave 
States, because it is there. You must not say any- 



BY GEORGE S. BOUTWELL. 



119 



thing about it in the pulpit, because that is religion, 
and has nothing to do with it. You must not say 
anything about it in politics, because that will dis- 
turb the security of my place. There is no place 
to talk about it as being wrong, although you say 
yourself it is a wrong." 

Among the rude people with whom Lincoln 
passed his youth and early manhood, his personal 
courage was often tested, and usually in support of 
the rights or pretensions of others, or in behalf of 
the weak, the wronged, or the dependent. In later 
years his moral characteristics were subjected to 
tests equally severe. Mr. Lincoln was not an 
agitator like Garrison, Phillips, and O'Connell, and 
as a Reformer he belonged to the class of moderate 
men, such as Peel and Gladstone ; but in no condi- 
tion did he ever confound right with wrong, or speak 
of injustice with bated breath. His first printed 
paper was a plea for temperance ; and his second, a 
eulogy upon the Union. His positive, personal hos- 
tility to slavery goes back to the year 1831, when he 
arrived at New Orleans as a laborer upon a flat- 
boat. " There it was," says Hanks, his companion ; 
" we saw negroes chained, maltreated, whipped and 
scourged. Lincoln saw it, said nothing much, was 
silent from feeling, was sad, looked bad, felt bad, was 
thoughtful and abstracted. I can say, knowing it, 
that it was on this trip that he formed his opinion of 



1 20 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

slavery. It run its iron in him then and there, May, 
1 83 1. I have heard him say so often and often." 
In 1850, he said to his partner, Mr. Stuart: "The 
time will come when we must all be Democrats or 
Abolitionists. When that time comes my mind is 
made up. The slavery question can't be compro- 
mised." In 1855, he said : " Our progress in degen- 
eracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation 
we becran by declaring that all men arc ci'cated equal. 
We now practically read it all men are created equal 
except negroes^ In his Ottawa speech of 1858, he 
read an extract from his speech at Peoria, made in 
1854, in these words: "This declared indifference, 
but as I must think real zeal for the spread of slav- 
ery, I cannot but hate. I hate it because of the 
monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it be- 
cause it deprives our Republican example of its just 
influence in the world, enables the enemies of free in- 
stitutions with plausibility to taunt us as hypocrites, 
causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sin- 
cerity, and, especially, because it forces so many really 
good men among ourselves into an open war with the 
very fundamental principles of civil liberty, criticising 
the Declaration of Independence, and insisting that 
there is no right principle of action but self-interest." 
These extracts prepare the reader for the most 
important utterance by Mr. Lincoln previous to his 
elevation to the Presidency. 



BV GEORGE S. BOUT WELL. 121 

The Republican Convention of the State of IIH- 
nois met at Springfield, June 17, 1858, and nomi- 
nated Mr. Lincoln for the seat in the Senate of the 
United States then held by Stephen A. Douglas. 
This action was expected, and Mr. Lincoln had pre- 
pared himself to accept the nomination in a speech 
which he foresaw would be the pivot of debate with 
Judge Douglas. That speech he submitted to a 
council of at least twelve of his personal and politi- 
cal friends, all of whom advised him to omit or to 
change materially the first paragraph. This Mr. 
Lincoln refused to do, even when challenged by the 
opinion that it would cost him his seat in the Senate. 
It did cost him his seat in the Senate, but the speech 
would have been delivered had he foreseen that it 
would cost him much more. After its delivery, and 
while the canvass was going on, he said to his 
friends : " You may think that speech was a mistake, 
but I never have believed it was, and you will see 
the day when you will consider it was the wisest 
thing I ever said. If I had to draw a pen across 
and erase my whole life from existence, and I had 
one poor gift or choice left as to what I should save 
from the wreck, I should choose that speech, and 
leave it to the world unerased." These are the 
words that he prized so highly, and which, for the 
time, cost him so much : " If we could first know 
where we are and whither we are tendine, we could 



122 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

better judge what to do and how to do it. We are 
now far into the fifth year since a poHcy was initi- 
ated with the avowed object and confident promise 
of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the 
operation of that poHcy, that agitation has not only 
not ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my 
opinion it will not cease until a crisis shall have been 
reached and passed. * A house divided against itself 
cannot stand.' I believe this g-overnment cannot 
endure permanently, half slave and half free. I do 
not expect the Union to be dissolved ; I do not ex- 
pect the house to fall ; but I do expect it will cease 
to be divided. It will become all one thingf or all 
the other ; either the opponents of slavery will arrest 
the further spread of it, and place it where the pub- 
lic mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course 
of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it 
forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the 
States, old as well as new. North as well as South." 
To the pro-slavery, sensitive, prejudiced. Union-sav- 
ing classes it was not difficult to interpret this para- 
graph in a highly offensive sense. The phrase, "A 
house divided ao-ainst itself cannot stand " was in- 
terpreted as a declaration against the Union. It 
was, in fact, a declaration of the existence of the 
irrepressible conflict. 

Douglas availed himself of the opportunity to ex- 
cite the prejudices of the people, and thus secured 



BY GEORGE S. BOUT WELL. 123 

his re-election to the Senate. Mr. Lincoln had a 
higher object: he sought to change public sentiment. 
No man ever lived who better understood the means 
of affecting public sentiment, or more highly appreci- 
ated its power and importance. At Ottawa he said : 
" In this and like communities public sentiment is 
everything. With public sentiment nothing can fail ; 
without it nothing can succeed. Consequently, he 
who molds public sentiment goes deeper than he 
who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions. He 
makes statutes and decisions possible or impossible 
to be executed." 

I have quoted thus freely from Mr. Lincoln that 
we may appreciate his moral courage ; that we may 
rest in the opinion that he was an early, constant, 
consistent advocate of human liberty ; and that we 
might enjoy the charm of his transcendently clear 
thought, convincing logic, and power of statement. 
When he became President, and was called to bear 
the chief burden in the struggle for liberty and the 
Union, he was never dismayed by the condition of 
public affairs, nor disturbed by apprehensions for his 
personal safety. He was like a soldier in the field, 
enlisted for duty, and danger was, of course, incident 
to it. I was alone with Mr. Lincoln more than two 
hours of the Sunday next after Pope's defeat in 
August, 1862. That was the darkest day of the sad 
years of the war. McClellan had failed upon the 



I 24 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Peninsula. Pope's army, reinforced by the remains 
of the Army of the Peninsula, had been driven within 
the fortification of Washington. Our losses of men 
had been enormous, but most serious of all was the 
loss of confidence in commanders. The army did 
not confide in Pope, and the authorities did not con- 
fide in McClellan. In that crisis Lincoln surren- 
dered his own judgment to the opinion of the army, 
and re-established McClellan in command. When 
the business to which I had been summoned by the 
President was over — strange business for the time: 
the appointment of assessors and collectors of inter- 
nal revenue — he was kind enough to ask my opinion 
as to the command of the army. The way was thus 
opened for conversation, and for me to say at the 
end that I thought our success depended upon the 
emancipation of the slaves. To this he said : " You 
would not have it done now, would you ? Must we 
not wait for something like a victory?" This was 
the second and most explicit intimation to me of his 
purpose in regard to slavery. In the preceding July 
or early in August, at an interview upon business 
connected with my official duties, he said, " Let me 
read two letters," and taking them from a pigeon- 
hole over his table he proceeded at once to do what 
he had proposed. I have not seen the letters in 
print. His correspondent was a gentleman in Louis- 
iana, who claimed to be a Union man. He tendered 



BY GEORGE S. BOUTWELL. I 25 

his advice to the President in regard to the reor- 
ganization of that State, and he labored zealously to 
impress upon him the dangers and evils of emanci- 
pation. The reply of the President is only impor- 
tant from the fact that when he came to that part of 
his correspondent's letter he used this expression : 
"You must not expect me to give up this govern- 
ment without playing my last card." Emancipation 
was his last card. He waited for the time when two 
facts or events should coincide. Mr. Lincoln was as 
devoted to the Constitution as was ever Mr. Web- 
ster. In his view, a military necessity was the only 
ground on which the overthrow of slavery in the 
States could be justified. Next he waited for a pub- 
lic sentiment in the loyal States not only demanding 
emancipation but giving full assurance that the act 
would be sustained to the end. As for himself, I 
cannot doubt that he had contemplated the policy 
of emancipation for many months, and anticipated 
the time when he should adopt it. At his interview 
with the Chicago clergy he stated the reasons 
against emancipation, and stated them so forcibly 
that the clergy were not prepared to answer them ; 
but the accredited account of the interview contains 
conclusive proof that Mr. Lincoln then contemplated 
issuing the proclamation. It may be remembered by 
the reader that in the political campaign of 1862, 
a prominent leader of the People's Party, the late 



126 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Judge Joel Parker, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, 
said in public that Mr. Lincoln issued the proclama- 
tion under the influence of the loyal governors who 
met at Altoona in September of that year. As I 
was about to leave Washington in the month of 
October to take part in the canvass, I mentioned to 
the President the fact that such a statement had 
been made. He at once said : " I never thought of 
the meeting of the governors. The truth is just 
this : When Lee came over the river, I made a res- 
olution that if McClellan drove him back I would 
send the proclamation after him. The battle of An- 
tietam was fought Wednesday, and until Saturday I 
could not find out whether we had gained a victory 
or lost a battle. It was then too late to issue the 
proclamation that day, and the fact is I fixed it up a 
little Sunday, and Monday I let them have it." 

Men will probably entertain different opinions of 
one part of Lincoln's character. He not only pos- 
sessed the apparently innate faculty of comprehend- 
ing the tendency, purposes and opinions of masses 
of men, but he observed and measured with accu- 
racy the peculiarities of individuals who were about 
him, and made those individuals, sometimes through 
their peculiarities and sometimes in spite of them, 
the instruments or agents of his own views. Of 
the three chief men in his Cabinet, Seward, Chase 
and Stanton, Mr. Stanton was the only one who 



BY GEORGE S. BOUTWELL. 12J 

never thus yielded to this power of the President. 
The reason was creditable alike to the President and 
to Mr. Stanton. Mr. Stanton was frank and fearless 
in his ofifice, devoted to duty, destitute of ambition, 
and uncompromising in his views touching emanci- 
pation and the suppression of the rebellion. The 
popular sentiment of the day made no impression 
upon him. He was always ready for every forward 
movement, and he could never be reconciled to a 
backward step, either in the field or the Cabinet. It 
is no injustice to Mr. Seward and Mr. Chase to say 
that they had ambitions which under some circum- 
stances might disturb the judgment. These ambi- 
tions and their tendencies could not escape the 
notice of the President. 

Mr. Lincoln was indifferent to those matters of 
government that were relatively unimportant ; but 
he devoted himself with conscientious diligence to 
the graver questions and topics of official duty, and 
in the first months of his administration, at a mo- 
ment of supreme peril, by his pre-eminent wisdom, 
of which there remains indubitable proof, he saved 
the country from a foreign war. I refer to the letter 
of instruction to Mr. Adams, written in May, 1861, 
and relating to the proclamation of the Government 
of Great Britain recognizing the belligerent charac- 
ter of the Confederate States. 

In the greatest exigencies his power of judging 



128 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

immediately and wisely did not desert him. On the 
eve of the battle of Gettysburg, General Hooker re- 
signed the command of the army. This act was a 
painful, a terrible surprise to Mr. Stanton and the 
President. Mr. Stanton's account to me was this : 
" When I received the dispatch my heart sank 
within me, and I was more depressed than at any 
other moment of the war. I could not say that any 
other officer knew General Hooker's plans, or the 
position even of the various divisions of the army. 
I sent for the President to come to the War Office 
at once. It was in the evening, but the President 
soon appeared. I handed him the dispatch. As he 
read it his face became like lead. I said, ' What 
shall be done ? ' He replied instantly, ' Accept his 
resignation.'" In secret, and without consulting any 
one else, the President and Secretary of War can- 
vassed the merits of the various officers of the army, 
and decided to place General Meade in command. 
Of this decision General Meade was informed by a 
dispatch sent by a special messenger, who reached 
his quarters before the break of day the next morn- 
ing. It may be interesting to know the grounds 
on which the President decided to promote General 
Meade. 

First — That he was a good soldier, if not a brill- 
iant one. 

Second — That he was a native of Pennsylvania, 



BY GEORGE BOUTWELL. 129 

and that State at that moment was the battle-field 
of the Union. 

Third — The President apprehended that a de- 
mand would be made for the restoration of General 
McClellan, and this he desired to prevent by the 
selection of a man who represented the same politi- 
cal opinions in the army and in the country. 

Mr. Lincoln entertained advanced thoughts and 
opinions upon all worthy topics of public concern ; 
indeed, his opinions were in advance, usually, of his 
acts as a public man. This is but another mode of 
stating the truth, that he possessed the faculty of 
foreseeing the course of public opinion — a faculty 
essential to statesmen in popular governments. 

In 1853, in a campaign letter, he said : " I go for all 
sharing the privileges of government who assist in 
bearing its burdens. Consequently, I go for admit- 
ting all whites to the right of suffrage who pay taxes 
or bear arms, by no means excluding females." In 
1854, he said : " Labor is prior to and independent 
of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and 
could never have existed if labor had not first ex- 
isted. Labor is the support of capital, and deserves 
much the higher consideration." In April of the 
same year, he said : " I am naturally antislavery. If 
slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I cannot 
remember when I did not so think and feel." In 
his last public utterance he declared himself in 



130 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

favor of extending the elective franchise to colored 
men. 

Thus he died without one limitation in his ex- 
pressed opinions of the rights of men which the 
historian or eulogist will desire to suppress or to 
qualify. It is to be said further of this many-sided 
man, and most opulent in natural resources, that he 
takes rank with the first logicians and orators of 
every age. His mastery over Douglas in the de- 
bate of 1858 was complete. While President, and 
by successive letters, he effectually repelled the at- 
tacks and silenced the criticisms of the New York 
Committee, of which Erastus Corning was the head, 
that condemned illegal arrests and the suspension 
of the writ of habeas corpus; of the Union Com- 
mittee of the State of Illinois, that proposed to 
save the Union if slavery could be saved with it ; 
of the Democratic Convention of the State of Ohio, 
that denounced the arrest of Vallandingham ; and 
of Horace Greeley himself, when he complained of 
the policy the President seemed to be pursuing on 
the subject of emancipation. 

As I approach my conclusion, I ask a judgment upon 
Mr. Lincoln, not as a competitor with Mr. Douglas 
for a seat in the Senate of the United States, but as 
a competitor for fame with the first orators of this 
and other countries, of this and other ages. 

In support of this view I quote the closing para- 



BY GEORGE S. BOUT WELL. 131 

graph of his first speech in the canvass of 1858. 
" Our cause, then, must be intrusted to, and con- 
ducted by its own undoubted friends, those whose 
hands are free, whose hearts are in the work, who 
do care for the result. Two years ago the Repub- 
Hcans of the nation mustered over thirteen hundred 
thousand strong. We did this under the single im- 
pulse of resistance to a common danger, with every 
external circumstance against us. Of strange, dis- 
cordant, and even hostile elements, we gathered 
from the four winds, and formed and fought the 
battle through, under the constant, hot fire of a 
disciplined, proud and pampered enemy. Did we 
brave all then to falter now ? Now, when that same 
enemy is wavering, dissevered and belligerent ? 
The result is not doubtful. We shall not fail ; if we 
stand firm we shall not fail. Wise counsels may ac- 
celerate, or mistakes delay it, but sooner or later 
the victory is sure to come." We all remember his 
simple, earnest, persuasive appeals to the South, in 
his first inaugural address. At the end he says : " I 
am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. 
We must not be enemies. Though passion may 
have strained, it must not break our bonds of affec- 
tion. The mystic cords of memory, stretching from 
every battle-field and patriot grave to every liv- 
ing heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, 
will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again 



132 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels 
of our nature." There is nothing elsewhere in our 
literature of plaintive entreaty to be compared with 
this. It combines the eloquence of the orator with 
the imagery and inspiration of the poet. But the 
three great papers on which Lincoln's fame will be 
carried along the ages are the proclamation of 
emancipation, his oration at Gettysburg, and his 
second inaugural address. The oration ranks with 
the noblest productions of antiquity, with the works 
of Pericles, of Demosthenes, of Cicero, and rivals 
the finest passages of Grattan, Burke or Webster. 
This is not the opinion of Americans only, but of 
the cultivated in other countries, whose judgment 
anticipates the judgment of posterity. 

When we consider the place, the occasion, the man, 
and, more than all, when we consider the oration it- 
self, can we doubt that it ranks with the first of 
American classics ? That literature is immortal which 
commands a permanent place in the schools of a 
country, and is there any composition more certain 
of that destiny than Lincoln's oration at Gettysburg ? 
" Fourscore and seven years ago, our fathers brought 
forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in 
liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men 
are created equal. Now, we are engaged in a great 
civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation 
so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We 



BY GEORGE S. BOUTWELL. 133 

are met on a great battle-field of that war. We are 
met to dedicate a portion of it as the final resting- 
place of those who have given their lives that that 
nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper 
that we should do this. But in a larger sense we can- 
not dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hal- 
low this ground. The brave men, living and dead, 
who struggled here, have consecrated it far above 
our power to add or detract. The world will little 
note nor long remember what we say here, but it 
can never forget what they did here. It is for us, 
the livinp-, rather to be dedicated here to the un- 
finished work that they have thus far so nobly car- 
ried on. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to 
the great task remaining before us ; that from these 
honored dead we take increased devotion to the 
cause for which they here gave the last full measure 
of devotion ; that we here highly resolve that these 
dead shall not have died in vain ; that the nation 
shall, under God, have a new birth of freedom, and 
that government of the people, by the people, for the 
people, shall not perish from the earth." But if all 
that Lincoln said and was should fail to carry his 
name and character to future ages, the emancipation 
of four million human beings by his single of^cial act 
is a passport to all of immortality that earth can give. 
There is no other individual act performed by any 
person on this continent that can be compared with 



134 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

it. The Declaration of Independence, the Consti- 
tution, were each the work of bodies of men. The 
Proclamation of Emancipation in this respect stands 
alone. The responsibility was wholly upon Lincoln ; 
the glory is chiefly his. No one can now say whether 
the Declaration of Independence, or the Constitution 
of the United States, or the Proclamation of Eman- 
cipation was the highest, best gift to the country and 
to mankind. With the curse of slavery in America 
there was no hope for republican institutions in other 
countries. In the presence of slavery the Declara- 
tion of Independence had lost its power ; practically, 
it had become a lie. In the presence of slavery we 
were to the rest of mankind and to ourselves a nation 
of hypocrites. The gift of freedom to four million 
negroes was not more valuable to them than to us ; 
and not more valuable to us than to the friends of 
liberty in other parts of the world. 

In these days, when politicians and parties are odi- 
ous to many thoughtful and earnest-minded persons, 
it may not be amiss to look at Mr. Lincoln as a politi- 
cian and partisan. These he was, first of all and always. 
He had political convictions that were ineradicable, 
and they were wholly partisan. As the rebellion be- 
came formidable, the Republican party became the 
party of the Union; and as the party of the Union, 
with Mr. Lincoln at its head, it was from first to last 
the only political organization in the country that 



BY GEORGE S. BOUTIVRLL. 1 35 

consistently, persistently, and without qualification of 
purpose, met, and in the end successfully met, every 
demand of the enemies of the government, whether 
proffered in diplomatic notes or on the field of bat- 
tle. He strueeled first for the Union, and then for 
the overthrow of slavery as the only formidable ene- 
my of the Union. These were his tests of political 
fellowship, and he carefully excluded from place 
every man who could not bear them. He accepted 
the great and most manifest lesson of free govern- 
ment, that every wise and vigorous administration 
represents the majority party, and that the best days 
of every free country are those days when a party 
takes and wields power by a popular verdict, and 
guards itself at every step against the assaults of a 
scrutinizing and vigorous opposition. He accepted 
the essential truths that a free government is a po- 
litical organization, and that the political opinions of 
those intrusted with its administration, as to what 
the government should be and do, are of more con- 
sequence to the country than even their knowledge 
of orthography and etymology. As a consequence, 
he accepted the proposition that every place of exec- 
utive discretion or of eminent administrative power 
should be occupied by the friends of the government. 
This, not because the spoils belong to the victors, but 
for the elevated and sufficient reason that the chief 
offices of state are instrumentalities and agencies by 



I 36 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

which the majority carry out their principles, perfect 
their measures, and render their poHcy acceptable to 
the country. And also for the further reason that 
in case of failure the administration is without excuse. 
The entire public policy of Mr. Lincoln was the nat- 
ural outgrowth of his political principles as a Repub- 
lican. Through the influence of experience and the 
exercise of power the politician ripened into the 
statesman, but the ideas, principles, and purposes of 
the statesman were the ideas, principles, and purposes 
of the partisan politician. In prosecuting the war 
for the Union, in the steps taken for the emancipa- 
tion of the slaves, Mr. Lincoln appeared to follow 
rather than to lead the Republican party. But his 
own views were more advanced usually than those of 
his party, and he waited patiently and confidently for 
the healthy movements of public sentiment which he 
well knew were in the right direction. No man was 
ever more firmly or consistently the representative 
of a party than was Mr. Lincoln, and his acknowl- 
edged greatness is due, first, to the wisdom and jus- 
tice of the principles and measures of the political 
party that he represented, and, secondly, to his fidel- 
ity in every hour of his administration, and in every 
crisis of public affairs, to the principles, ideas and 
measures of the party with which he was identified. 

Having seen Mr. Lincoln as frontiersman, politician, 
lawyer, stump-speaker, orator, statesman and patriot, 
it only remains for us to contemplate him as an his- 



BY GEORGE S. BOUTWELL. 1^7 

torical personage. First of all, it is to be said that 
Mr. Lincoln is next in fame to Washington, and it 
is by no means certain that history will not assign 
to Lincoln an equal place, and this without any 
qualification of the claims or disparagement in any 
way of the virtues of the Father of this country. 
The measure of Washington's fame is full, but for 
many centuries, and over vast spaces of the globe 
and among all peoples passing from barbarism or 
semi-servitude to civilization and freedom, Mr. Lin- 
coln will be hailed as the Liberator. In all gov- 
ernments struggling for existence, his example will 
be a guide and a help. Neither the gift of proph- 
ecy nor the quality of imagination is needed to fore- 
cast the steady growth of Lincoln's fame. At the 
close of the twentieth century the United States 
will contain one hundred and fifty or two hundred 
million inhabitants, and from one-fourth to one-third 
of the population of the globe will then use the Eng- 
lish language. To all these and to all their descend- 
ants Mr. Lincoln will be one of the three great char- 
acters of American history, while to the unnumbered 
millions of the negro race in the United States, in 
Africa, in South America, and in the islands of the 
sea, he will be the great figure of all ages and of 
every nation. His fame will increase and spread with 
the knowledge of Republican institutions, with the 
expansion and power of the English-speaking race, 
and with the deeper respect which civilization will 



138 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

create for whatever is attractive in personal charac- 
ter, wise in the administration of pubHc affairs, just 
in poHcy, or liberal and comprehensive in the exer- 
cise of constitutional and extra-constitutional powers. 

It was but an inadequate recognition of the char- 
acter and services of Mr. Lincoln that was made by 
the patriots of Rome when they chose a fragment 
from the wall of Servius Tullius and sent it to the 
President with this inscription: "To Abraham Lin- 
coln, President for the second time of the American 
Republic, citizens of Rome present this stone, from 
the wall of Servius Tullius, by which the memory of 
each of those brave asserters of Liberty may be asso- 
ciated. Anno 1865." The final and nobler tribute to 
Mr. Lincoln is yet to be rendered, not by a single city 
nor by the patriots of a single country. A knowledge 
of his life and character is to be carried by civilization 
into every nation and to every people. Under him 
and largely through his acts and influence justice 
became the vital force of the Repubhc. The war 
established our power. The policy of Mr. Lincoln 
and those who acted with him secured the reign of 
justice ultimately In our domestic affairs. Possess- 
ing power and exhibiting justice, the nation should 
pursue a policy of peace. 

Power, Justice and Peace; in them Is the glory of 
the regenerated Republic. 

GEORGE S. BOUTWELL. 



I il!*ll!l'Ji!ill!i 





VII. 

Benjamin F. Butler. 



I. 



I AM asked to give some reminiscences of Abra- 
ham Lincoln. I have so many and pleasant 
ones that I do not know where to begin unless at 
the beginning. 

I first saw Lincoln in 1840, making a speech in 
that memorable campaign, in the City Hall at Lowell; 
and not again till I was more than twenty-one years 
older, when I called on him at the White House to 
make acknowledgments for my appointment as ma- 
jor-general. When he handed me the commission, 
with some kindly words of compliment, I replied : " 1 
do not know whether I ought to accept this. I re- 
ceived my orders to prepare my brigade to march to 
Washington while trying a cause to a jury. I stated 
the fact to the court and asked that the case might 
be continued, which was at once consented to, and I 
left to come here the second morning after, my busi- 
ness in utter confusion." He said : " I guess we both 
wish we were back trying cases," with a quizzical 
look upon his countenance. I said : " Besides, Mr. 



I40 



REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



President, you may not be aware that I was the 
Breckinridge candidate for Governor in my State in 
the last campaign, and did all I could to prevent your 
election." " All the better," said he ; "I hope your 
example will bring many of the same sort with you." 
" But," I answered, " I do not know that I can sup- 
port the measures of your administration, Mr. Pres- 
ident." " I do not care whether you do or not," was 
his reply, " if you will fight for the country." " I 
will take the commission and loyally serve while I 
may, and bring it back to you when I can go with 
you no further." "That is frank; but tell me where- 
in you think my administration wrong before you 
resign," said he. " Report to General Scott." 

I was assigned to the command of the Department 
of Virginia and North Carolina, and didn't see Mr. 
Lincoln again until after the capture of Hatteras, 
about the first of September, the news of which I 
was able to bring him in person, and he gave me 
leave to come home and look after my private busi- 
ness, as I had been relieved from command at Fort- 
ress Monroe by Brevet Lieutenant-General Wool. 

When I returned to Washington, Lincoln sent for 
me, and after greetings said : " General, you are out 
of a job ; now, if we only had the troops, I would like 
to have an expedition either against Mobile, New 
Orleans, or Galveston. Filling up regiments is going 
on very slowly." I said: "Mr. President, you gave 



BV BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 141 

me permission to tell you when I differed from the 
action of the administration." He said hastily : " You 
think we are wrong, do you ? " I said : " Yes, in this: 
You are making this too much a party war. That 
perhaps is not the fault of the administration but the 
result of political conditions. All the northern Gov- 
ernors are Republicans, and they of course appoint 
only their Republican friends as officers of regiments, 
and then the officers only recruit Republicans. Now 
this war cannot go on as a party war. You must get 
the Democrats in it, and there are thousands of patri- 
otic Democrats who would go into it if they could see 
any opportunity on equal terms with Republicans. 
Besides, it is not good politics. An election is coming 
on for Congressmen next year, and if you get all the 
Republicans sent out as soldiers and the Democrats 
not interested, I do not see but you will be beaten." 
He said: "There is meat in that. General," a favorite 
expression of his ; " what is your suggestion ?" I said : 
"Empower me to raise volunteers for the United 
States and select the officers, and I will go to New 
England and raise a division of 6,000 men in sixty 
days. If you will give me power to select the offi- 
cers I shall choose all Democrats. And if you put 
epaulets on their soldiers they will be as true to the 
country as I hope I am." He said: "Draw such an 
order as you want, but don't get me into any scrape 
with the Governors about the appointments of the 



142 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

officers if you can help it." The order was signed, 
the necessary funds were furnished the next day, 
and I started for New England ; in ninety days I 
had 6,000 men enlisted, and was ordered to make 
preparations for an expedition to Ship Island, and 
the last portion of that expedition sailed on the 25th 
of February, 1862. 

All the New England Governors appointed Dem- 
ocratic officers of my selection save one. And this 
plan was followed by Governors of the Northern and 
Western States, which had not been done before in 
cases of civilians who had not been educated at 
West Point. Before I left Washineton I called 
upon the President to take leave of him. He re- 
ceived me very cordially, and said : " Good-by, Gen- 
ral ; get into New Orleans if you can, and the back- 
bone of the rebellion will be broken. It is of more 
importance than anything else that can now be done; 
but don't interfere with the slavery question, as Fre- 
mont has done at St. Louis, and as your man Phelps 
has been doing on Ship Island." I said: " May I not 
arm the negroes?" He said: "Not yet; not yet." 
I said : "Jackson did." He answered : " But not to 
fight against their masters, but with them." I re- 
plied: " I will wait for the word or the necessity, Mr. 
President." " That's right ; God be with you." 

On my return from New Orleans the first of Jan- 
uary, 1863, I received from an officer of a revenue 



BY BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 1 43 

cutter jn New York harbor a kindly note from Lin- 
coln asking me to come to Washington at once, with 
which I complied. After greetings, I said : " Why 
was I relieved, Mr. President, from command at New 
Orleans?" "I do not know. General," was the an- 
swer ; " something about foreign affairs ; ask Seward. 
Do you want to go back again to the Mississippi 
River, General?" " No, Mr. President, not unless I 
can go back to New Orleans." He then produced a 
map which had been colored according to the pro- 
portion of white and slave population in the United 
States bordering on the Mississippi, and said : "■ See 
that black cloud. General. If it is not under some 
control soon, shall we not have trouble there ? 
Hadn't you better go down to Vicksburg?" ** No," 
I said, "the black cloud you can control by coming 
up river as well as going down. I prefer to go home 
rather than to go anywhere else in the south-west 
than to New Orleans." He said : " I am sorry, Gen- 
eral, that you won't go. I can't send you to New 
Orleans without doing injustice to General Banks, 
who has not yet been tried there." " And I can't 
consistently with self-respect go anywhere else in the 
south-west from which I have just been relieved." 

Some months after this interview, being at Wash- 
ington on some business matter, I called to pay my 
respects to the President, and he said to me jocosely, 
" Well, General, you have had some time with noth- 



144 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

inof to do but to look on ; any more criticisms?" I 
said: "Yes, Mr. President, the bounties which are 
now being paid to new recruits cause very large de- 
sertions. Men desert and go home, and get the 
bounties and enlist in other regiments." " That is 
too true," he replied, "but how can we prevent it!" 
** By vigorously shooting every man who is caught 
as a deserter until it is found to be a danfjerous busi- 
ness." A saddened, weary look came over his face 
which I had never seen before, and he slowly replied, 
" You may be right — probably are so ; but God help 
me, how can I have a butcher's day every Friday in 
the Army of the Potomac ? " The subject seemed 
to me to be too painful to him to be further pursued. 
In the later summer I was invited by the President 
to ride with him in the evening out to the Soldiers' 
Home, some two miles, a portion of the way being 
quite lonely. He had no guard — not even an orderly 
on the box. I said to him : " Is it known that you 
ride thus alone at night out to the Soldiers' Home?" 
" Oh, yes," he answered, " when business detains me 
until night. I do go out earlier as a rule." I said : 
" I think you peril too much. We have passed a 
half dozen places where a well-directed bullet might 
have taken you off." "Oh," he replied, "assassina- 
tion of public officers is not an American crime. 
But perhaps it would relieve the anxiety of anxious 
friends which you express if I had a guard." The 



BY BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 145 

next morning I spoke to Stanton about It, and he 
afterward insisted upon the President having a guard. 
In November, 1863, I received an order to pro- 
ceed to Fort Monroe and resume command of the 
Department of Virginia and North CaroHna, reliev- 
ingf General Foster. En route throuorh Washlnor- 
ton I called upon the President and thanked him 
for this mark of confidence, and he said : *' Yes, 
General, I believe In 3^ou, but not in shooting de- 
serters. As a commander of a department, you can 
now shoot them for yourself. But let me advise you 
not to amuse yourself by playing billiards with a 
rebel officer who is a prisoner of war." And it was 
thus that I learned one of the causes for General 
Foster's being relieved, which was for playing bill- 
iards with General Fitz Hugh Lee, then a prisoner 
of war. He then said : " I wish you would give all 
the attention you can to raising negro troops ; large 
numbers of negroes will probably come In to you. 
I believe you raised the first ones In New Orleans." 
I said : " Yes, Mr. President, except General Hunter 
at South Carolina, whose negro troops were dis- 
banded by your order." " Yes," he said, laughing, 
" Hunter Is a very good fellow, but he was a little 
too previous in that." He then said good-naturedly: 
" Don't let Davis catch you. General ; he has put a 
price on your head ; he will hang you sure." I an- 
swered: "That's a game two can play at, Mr. Presi- 



146 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

dent. If I ever catch him I will remember your 
scruples about capital punishment, and relieve you 
from any trouble with them in his case. He has 
outlawed me, and if I get hold of him I shall give 
him the law of the outlaw after a reasonable time to 
say his prayers." 

Lincoln visited my department twice while I was 
in command. He was personally a very brave man, 
and gave me the worst fright of my life. He came 
to my head-quarters and said : " General, I should 
like to ride along your lines and see them, and see 
the boys and how they are situated in camp." I 
said, " Very well, we will go after breakfast." I 
happened to have a very tall, easy-riding, pacing 
horse, and as the President was rather long legged, 
I tendered him the use of him while I rode beside 
him on a pony. He was dressed, as was his custom, 
in a black suit, a swallow-tail coat, and tall silk hat. 
As there rode on the other side of him at first Mr. 
Fox, the Secretary of the Navy, who was not more 
than five feet six inches in height, he stood out as 
a central figure of the group. Of course the staff 
officers and orderly were behind. When we got to 
the line of intrenchment, from which the line of rebel 
pickets was not more than 300 yards, he towered 
high above the works, and as we came to the several 
encampments the boys all turned out and cheered 
him lustily. Of course the enemy's attention was 



BY BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 147 

wholly directed to this performance, and with the 
glass it could be plainly seen that the eyes of their 
officers were fastened upon Lincoln ; and a person- 
age riding down the lines cheered by the soldiers 
was a very unusual thing, so that the enemy must 
have known that he was there. Both Mr. Fox and 
myself said to him, " Let us ride on the side next to 
the enemy, Mr. President. You are in fair rifle-shot 
of them, and they may open fire; and they must 
know you, being the only person not in uniform, 
and the cheering of the troops directs their attention 
to you." "Oh, no," he said laughing, "the com- 
mander-in-chief of the army must not show any 
cowardice in the presence of his soldiers, whatever 
he may feel." And he insisted upon riding the 
whole six miles, which was about the length of my 
intrenchments, in that position, amusing himself at 
intervals, where there was nothing more attractive, 
in a sort of competitive examination of the com- 
manding-general in the science of engineering, 
much to the amusement of my engineer-in-chief. 
General Weitzel, who rode on my left, and who was 
kindly disposed to prompt me while the examination 
was going on, which attracted the attention of Mr. 
Lincoln, who said, " Hold on, Weitzel, I can't beat 
you, but I think I can beat Butler." 

I give this incident to show his utter unconcern 
under circumstances of very great peril, which kept 



14.8 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

the rest of us in a continued and quite painful 
anxiety. When we reached the left of the line we 
turned off toward the hospitals, which were quite 
extensive and kept in most admirable order by my 
medical director, Surgeon McCormack. The Presi- 
dent passed through all the wards, stopping and 
speaking very kindly to some of the poor fellows as 
they lay on their cots, and occasionally administer- 
ing a few words of commendation to the ward mas- 
ter. Sometimes when reaching a patient who showed 
much suffering the President's eyes would glisten 
with tears. The effect of his presence upon these 
sick men was wonderful, and his visit did great 
o-ood. for there was no medicine which was equal to 
the cheerfulness which his visit so largely inspired. 

I accompanied him to Fort Monroe, and after- 
ward to Fort Wool, which is on the middle ground 
between the channels at Hampton Roads. As we 
sat at dinner, before we took the boat for Washing- 
ton, his mind seemed to be preoccupied, and he 
hardly did justice to the best dinner our resources 
could provide for him. I said, " I hope you are not 
unwell; you do not eat, Mr. President?" "I am 
well enough," was the reply; "but would to God this 
dinner or provisions like it were with our poor pris- 
oners in Andersonville. 

Not lone afterward I had occasion to visit 
Washington, and I took with me the record of a 



BY BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 1 49 

court-martial wherein I had approved a sentence of 
death, and, upon reflection and re-examination of the 
record, had some doubt as to the entire sufficiency 
of the evidence. The order for execution at a 
future day had been promulgated, and although I 
might have commuted the sentence even then, yet 
I thought a pardon had better come from the Presi- 
dent, perhaps induced by the thought that a pardon 
from him would be no reflection upon the court, or 
intimation that the commading general ever had 
any occasion to change his mind upon such matter. 
I called upon the President, laid the record down 
before him, and in a few words explained it. He 
looked up and said, " You asking me to pardon 
some poor fellow ! Give me that pen." And in less 
time than I can tell it the pardon was ordered with- 
out further investigfation. 

Indeed the President didn't keep his promise to 
allow me to execute whom I pleased as Commander 
of the Department, for he was not unfrequently 
sending down telegraphic orders to have some con- 
victed person sent to the Dry Tortugas. 

I have given only such incidents, free from all ob- 
servation of my own, as will tend to illustrate his 
character, and will content myself with one which 
develops another phase. 

It will be remembered that, like all Southern men, 
Mr. Lincoln did not understand the negro character. 



1 50 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

He doubted very much whether the negro and the 
white man could possibly live together in any other 
condition than that of slavery ; and early after the 
emancipation proclamation he proposed to Congress 
to try the experiment of negro colonization in order 
to dispose of those negroes who should come within 
our lines. And, as I remember, speaking from 
memory only, attempted to make some provision 
at Demerara, through the agency of Senator Pom- 
eroy, for colonizing the negroes. The experiment 
was not fully carried out, the reasons for which are 
of no moment here. 

Lincoln was very much disturbed after the surren- 
der of Lee, and he had been to Richmond, upon the 
question of what would be the results of peace in 
the Southern States as affected by the contiguity of 
the white and black races. Shortly before the time, 
as I remember it, when Mr. Seward was thrown 
from his carriage and severely injured, being then in 
Washington, the President sent for the writer, and 
said, " General Butler, I am troubled about the 
negroes. We are soon to have peace. We have 
got some one hundred and odd thousand negroes 
who have been trained to arms. When peace shall 
come I fear lest these colored men shall organize 
themselves in the South, especially in the States 
where the negroes are in preponderance in numbers, 
into guerrilla parties, and we shall have down there 



BY BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 151 

a warfare between the whites and the negroes. In 
the course of the reconstruction of the Government 
it will become a question of how the negro is to be 
disposed of. Would it not be possible to export 
them to some place, say Liberia, or South America, 
and organize them into communities to support 
themselves ? Now, General, I wish you would ex- 
amine the practicability of such exportation. Your 
organization of the flotilla which carried your army 
from Yorktown and Fort Monroe to City Point, and 
its success show that you understand such matters. 
Will you give this your attention, and, at as early a 
day as possible, report to me your views upon the 
subject." I replied, " Willingly," and bowed and 
retired. After some few days of examination, with 
the aid of statistics and calculations, of this topic, I 
repaired to the President's office in the morning, and 
said to him, " I have come to report to you on the 
question you have submitted to me, Mr. President, 
about the exportation of the negroes." He exhib- 
ited great interest, and said, '' Well, what do you 
think of it ?" I said : " Mr. President, I assume that 
if the negro is to be sent away on shipboard you 
do not propose to enact the horrors of the mid- 
dle passage, but would give the negroes the air- 
space that the law provides for emigrants." He 
said, " Certainly." " Well, then, here are some 
calculations which will show you that if you under- 



152 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

take to export all of the negroes — and I do not 
see how you can take one portion differently from 
another — negro children will be born faster than 
your whole naval and merchant vessels, if substan- 
tially all of them were devoted to that use, can carry 
them from the country ; especially as I believe that 
their increase will be much greater in a state of free- 
dom than of slavery, because the commingling of the 
two races does not tend to productiveness." He ex- 
amined my tables carefully for some considerable 
time, and then he looked up sadly and said : " Your 
deductions seem to be correct, General. But what 
can we do ? " I replied : " If I understand you, Mr. 
President, your theory is this : That the negro sol- 
diers we have enlisted will not return to the peaceful 
pursuits of laboring men, but will become a class of 
guerrillas and criminals. Now, while I do not see, 
under the Constitution, even with all the aid of Con- 
gress, how you can export a class of people who are 
citizens against their will, yet the Commander-in- 
Chief can dispose of soldiers quite arbitrarily. Now, 
then, we have large quantities of clothing to clothe 
them, large quantities of provision with which to 
supply them, and arms and everything necessary for 
them, even to spades and shovels, mules and wagons. 
Our war has shown that an army organization is the 
very best for digging up the soil and making in- 
trenchments. Witness the very many miles of in- 



BY BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 153 

trenchments that our soldiers have dug out. I know 
of a concession of the United States of Colombia 
for a tract of thirty miles wide across the Isthmus 
of Panama for opening a ship canal. The enlist- 
ments of the negroes have all of them from two to 
three years to run. Why not send them all down 
there to dig the canal ? They will withstand the 
climate, and the work can be done with less cost 
to the United States in that way than in any 
other. If you choose, I will take command of the 
expedition. We will take our arms with us, and I 
need not suggest to you that we will need nobody 
sent down to guard us from the interference of any 
nation. We will proceed to cultivate the land and 
supply ourselves with all the fresh food that can be 
raised in the tropics, which will be all that will be 
needed, and your stores of provisions and supplies 
of clothing will furnish all the rest. Shall I work 
out the details of such an expedition for you, Mr. 
President?" He reflected for some time, and then 
said : " There is meat in that suggestion, General 
Butler ; there is meat in that suggestion. Go and 
talk to Seward, and see what foreign complication 
there will be about it. Then think it over, get your 
figures made, and come to me again as soon as you 
can. If the plan has no other merit, it will rid the 
country of the colored soldiers." " Oh," said I, " it 
will do more than that. After we get down there 



154 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

we shall make a humble petition for you to send 
our wives and children to us, which you can't well 
refuse, and then you will have a United States col- 
ony in that region which will hold its own against all 
comers, and be contented and happy." "Yes, yes," 
said he, " that's it ; go and see Seward." 

I left the office, called upon the Secretary of 
State, who received me kindly, and explained in a 
few words what the President wanted. He said : 
" Yes, General, I know that the President is greatly 
worried upon this subject. He has spoken to me of 
it frequently, and yours may be a solution of it; 
but to-day is my mail day. I am very much driven 
with what must be done to-day ; but I dine, as you 
know, at six o'clock. Come and take a family dinner 
with me, and afterward, over an indifferent cigar, 
we will talk this matter over fully." 

But that evening Secretary Seward, in his drive 
before dinner, was thrown from his carriage and 
severely injured, his jaw being broken, and he was 
confined to his bed until the assassination of Lincoln, 
and the attempted murder of himself by one of the 
confederates of Booth, so that the subject could 
never be again mentioned to Mr. Lincoln. 



BY BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 1 55 



II. 



There are two incidents in regard to the nomi- 
nation of Vice-President in 1864 which for obvious 
reasons did not get into the newspapers of that day, 
but which bit of history may be of interest. 

It will be remembered that Mr. Chase was using 
his position as Secretary of the Treasury to aid in 
his candidature for the Presidency as early as the win- 
ter and spring of 1864. That was supposed to have 
created some coolness between him and Mr. Lincoln. 

Early in the spring of that year, a prominent 
Treasury official, who held his office directly from 
Mr. Chase, without the intervention of either the 
President or the Senate, but yet who controlled the 
disposition of more property and the avenues of 
making more fortunes than any other subordinate 
Treasury official, and who afterward held as large 
a controlling influence with Mr. Seward, but in quite 
a different direction, came to the head-quarters of 
the Department of Virginia and North Carolina, 
ostensibly upon official business. 

After that was finished, the actual object of his 
visit was disclosed by a question, in substance as 
follows : 

" There has been some criticism. General, based 
on the assertion that Mr. Chase is using the powers 



156 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

of his office to aid his Presidential aspirations. What 
do you think of Mr. Chase's action, assuming the re- 
ports true ? " 

" I see no objection to his using his office to ad- 
vance his Presidential aspirations, by every honor- 
able means, providing Lincoln will let him do it. It 
is none of my business, but I have for some time 
thought that Mr. Lincoln was more patient than I 
should have been, and if he does not object, nobody 
else has either the power or right to do so." 

" Then, General, you approve of Mr. Chase's 
course in this regard ? " 

" Yes, certainly; he has a right to use in a proper 
manner every means he has to further a laudable 
ambition." 

" As Chase is a Western man," said my visitor, 
" the Vice- Presidency had better come from the East. 
Who, General, do you think will make a good candi- 
date with Mr. Chase?" 

" There are plenty of good men," I answered ; 
" but as Chase is very pronounced as an antislavery 
man and free-soiler, I think that General John A. 
Dix, of New York, ous;ht to be selected to gro on his 
ticket, and thus bring to his banner, both in conven- 
tion and at the polls, the war Democrats, of whom 
Mr. Dix claims to be a fair representative." 

" You are a war Democrat, General ; would you 
take that position with Mr. Chase yourself?" 



BV BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. I 57 

" Are you specifically authorized by Mr. Chase to 
put to me that question, and report my answer to 
him for his consideration ?" 

"You may rest assured," was the reply, "that I 
am fully empowered by Mr. Chase to put the ques- 
tion, and he hopes the answer will be favorable." 

" Say, then, to Mr. Chase that I have no desire to 
be Vice-President. I am but forty-five years old ; I 
am in command of a fine army ; the closing campaign 
of the war is about beginning, and I hope to be able 
to do some further service for the country, and I 
should not, at my time of life, wish to be Vice-Presi- 
dent if I had no other position. Assure him that my 
determination in this regard has no connection with 
himself personally. I will not be a candidate for any 
elective ofiice whatever until this war is over." 

" I will report your determination to Mr. Chase, 
and I can assure you that from what I know of his 
feelings he will hear it with regret." 

Within three weeks afterward a gentleman who 
stood very high in Mr. Lincoln's confidence came to 
me at Fort Monroe. This was after I had learned 
that Grant had allotted to me a not unimportant part 
in the coming campaign around Richmond, of the 
results of which I had the highest hope, and for 
which I had been laboring, and the story of which 
has not yet been told, but may be hereafter. 

The gentleman informed me that he came from 



158 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOIN 

Mr. Lincoln ; this was said with directness, because 
the messenger and myself had been for a very con- 
siderable time in quite warm, friendly relations, and 
I owed much to him, which I can never repay save 
with gratitude. 

He said : " The President, as you know, intends 
to be a candidate for re-election, and as his friends 
indicate that Mr. Hamlin is no longer to be a candi- 
date for Vice-President, and as he is from New Eno-- 

o 

land, the President thinks that his place should be 
filled by some one from that section ; and aside from 
reasons of personal friendship which would make it 
pleasant to have you with him, he believes that, be- 
ing the first prominent Democrat who volunteered 
for the war, your candidature would add strength to 
the ticket, especially with the war Democrats, and 
he hopes that you will allow your friends to co-oper- 
ate with his to place you in that position." 

I answered : " Please say to Mr. Lincoln, that 
while I appreciate with the fullest sensibility this act 
of friendship and the compliment he pays me, yet I 
must decline. Tell him," I said laughingly, "with 
the prospects of the campaign, I would not quit the 
field to be Vice-President, even with himself as Pres- 
ident, unless he will give me bond with sureties, in 
the full sum of his four years' salary, that he will die 
or resign within three months after his inauguration. 
Ask him what he thinks I have done to deserve the 



BY BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 1 59 

punishment, at forty-six years of age, of being made 
to sit as presiding officer over the Senate, to listen 
for four years to debates, more or less stupid, in 
which I can take no part nor say a word, nor even be 
allowed a vote upon any subject which concerns the 
welfare of the country, except when my enemies 
might think my vote would injure me in the estima- 
tion of the people, and therefore, by some parlia- 
mentary trick, make a tie on such question, so I 
should be compelled to vote ; and then at the end of 
four years (as nowadays no Vice-President is ever 
elected President), and because of the dignity of the 
position I had held, not to be permitted to go on 
with my profession, and therefore with nothing left 
for me to do save to ornament my lot in the ceme- 
tery tastefully, and get into it gracefully and respect- 
ably, as a Vice-President should do. No, no, my 
friend ; tell the President I will do everything I can 
to aid in his election if nominated, and that I hope 
he will be, as until this war is finished there should 
be no change of administration." 

" I am sorry you won't go with us," replied my 
friend, " but I think you are sound in your judg- 
ment." 

I asked : " Is Chase making any headway In his 
candidature?" 

"Yes, some; but he is using the whole power of 
the Treasury to help himself." 



l6o REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

"Well, that's the right thing for him to do." 

" Do you really think so?" 

" Yes ; why ought not he to do it, if Lincoln lets 
him ? " 

" How can Lincoln help letting him?" 

" By tipping him out. If I were Lincoln I should 
say to Mr. Chase, * My Secretary of the Treasury, 
you know that I am a candidate for re-election, as I 
suppose it is proper for me to be. Now every one 
of my equals has a right to be a candidate against 
me, and every citizen of the United States is my 
equal who is not my subordinate. Now, if you de- 
sire to be a candidate, I will give you the fullest op- 
portunity to be one, by making you my equal and 
not my subordinate, and I will do that in any way 
that will be the most pleasant to you, but things can- 
not stay as they now are.' You see, I think it is Mr. 
Lincoln's and not Mr. Chase's fault that he is usine 
the Treasury against Mr. Lincoln." 

" Right again ! " said my friend, " I will tell Mr. 
Lincoln every word you have said." 

What happened after is a matter of history. 

BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 



VIII. 

Charles Carlton Coffin. 
I. 

THE one political convention surpassing all 
others in enthusiasm, earnestness of purpose, 
and fidelity to principle, was that of the Republican 
Party held in Chicago, May, i860. The spirit ani- 
mating it was prefigured in the erection of the "wig- 
wam," an edifice ifi which it was held. The conven- 
tion was the sudden bursting into flower of the 
growing spirit of the free States against the aggres- 
sions of slavery. 

The enthusiasm was stimulated by the conviction 
that through the dissensions of the Democratic 
Party the nominee of the convention would in all 
probability receive a majority of the electoral votes. 

It was the opinion of most men east of Ohio that 
Mr. Seward of New York would receive the nomi- 
nation. There were three other prominent candi- 
dates — Salmon P. Chase of Ohio, Edward Bates of 
Missouri, and Abraham Lincoln of Illinois. 

Several weeks prior to the assembling of the con- 
vention, I started from Boston on a tour of obser- 



1 62 REMIXISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

vation through New York, New Jersey, Pennsyl- 
vania, to Baltimore, attending the Whig Convention 
in that city, which nominated John Bell of Tennessee, 
and Edward Everett of Massachusetts. It was the 
last assembling of that party which had numbered 
among its leaders Daniel Webster and Henry 
Clay — the raking together the embers of a dying 
political organization, appropriately held in an old 
church from which worshipers had forever de- 
parted. Southern men controlled the convention. 
They were enthusiastic over the nomination of Bell, 
but moderate in their demonstration over Everett's 
name, although public opinion in the Northern States 
regarded Everett as by far the greater statesman 
of the two. One editor called it the "kangaroo" 
ticket, and said that its hind lesfs were lonofest. It 
was noticeable that the antagonism of the Southern 
Whigs was manifestly greater toward the " black 
Republicans " than toward either wing of the 
divided Democratic Party. 

From Baltimore I passed on to Washington, find- 
ing the name of Mr. Seward upon the lips of most 
Republicans as the probable nominee of the ap- 
proaching convention. Mr. Seward expected to be 
nominated. I recall a day in the Senate Chamber, 
and a conversation with Henry Wilson, Senator 
from Massachusetts. We were seated on a sofa, 
when Mr. Seward entered from the cloak-room. 



BY CHARLES CARLTON COFFIN. I 63 

" There is our future President," said Mr. Wilson 
" He will be nominated at Chicago, and elected. 
He feels it. You can see it in his bearing." 

Of the public men of the period, there was no 
keener observer than Senator Wilson — Thaddeus 
Stevens of Pennsylvania being a possible exception 
— no one whose fingers detected more closely the 
beating of the heart of the people of the Northern 
States. Mr. Wilson knew every phase of public 
sentiment in Massachusetts, comprehended New 
England far beyond any other man, but he did not 
fully comprehend the trend of thought and feeling 
in the great West — the rapid growth and change 
which was going on during those spring days in the 
Republican States beyond the AUeghanies. Had he 
seen what I saw a week later he would not have 
so readily concluded that Mr. Seward was to be the 
next President. 

My journey from Philadelphia to Pittsburg suf- 
ficed to convince me that Mr. Seward would not re- 
ceive the votes of Pennsylvania in the convention. 
A quarter of a century ago there was a rivalry 
between the two States for political prestige and 
power which has disappeared with the changed con- 
dition of affairs. New York gloried in being the 
" Empire " State, while Pennsylvania plumed herself 
upon being the " keystone " which sustained the 
Republic. It was plain to me that Pennsylvanian 



164 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Republicans had no intention of giving their votes 
to the favorite son of New York, but would with- 
hold them from any candidate till they could be 
given with decisive result. 

In Ohio I found a moderate enthusiasm for Mr. 
Chase, but I could discover no particular organiza- 
tion to promote his candidacy. Of public sentiment 
in Indiana I could form no definite opinion. There 
had been no crystallizing of sentiment other than 
that the nominee must be a Western man. 

II. 

Arriving in Chicago several days in advance of 
the assembling: of the convention, I found a number 
of delegates from Missouri actively advocating the 
nomination of Mr. Bates. In no city of the Union 
had there been so rapid a development of Republi- 
can sentiment as in St. Louis. The Republicans of 
that city believed, or affected to believe, that with 
Mr. Bates they could secure the electoral vote of 
the State. 

There was but one name on the lips of the Repub- 
licans of Illinois — that of Abraham Lincoln. They 
knew him personally; had looked into his face at 
the mass meetings in the memorable contest with 
Douglas; had listened to his plain, incisive argu- 
ments, as clear and demonstrable as a proposition 
from Euclid. Outside of Illinois he was the " rail- 



BV CHARLES CARLTON COFFIN. 1 65 

splitter" — a plain, ungainly man, a homespim candi- 
date, once member of Congress, but unacquainted 
with public affairs as the ruler of a nation. 

Thurlow Weed had charge of Mr. Seward's affairs, 
and employed all the means and appliances known 
to New York political managers — even to enrolling 
delegates who reported themselves from Texas. I 
discovered a band of claqiiers in the interest of Mr. 
Seward, who hurrahed upon the streets and in the 
convention at every mention of his name. They 
overdid their part. 

Mr. Norman B. Judd had charge of Mr. Lincoln's 
canvass, but there had been no such systematic pull- 
ing of distant wires or organization on his part. 
Nor was there need. It was manifest from the out- 
set that there was a ground-swell of public opinion, 
if I may use the term, which promised to sweep all 
before it, and which rose, like the tides of the sea, 
during the second day of the convention, brought 
into quick action by the determination to devour 
Weed's organized band. 

Arnold, in his Life of Lincobi, has narrated how 
it was done, by the employment of a Dr. Ames, who 
had a voice sufficiently powerful to be heard above 
the uproar of the lake in the wildest storm. He was 
a Democrat, but readily consented to shout for Lin- 
coln. With an organized band he was placed at one 
end of the wigwam ; another body was stationed at 



1 66 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

the opposite end. Mr. Cook, of Ottawa, delegate, 
was upon the platform. Whenever he waved his 
handkerchief they were to cheer. It was that hand- 
kerchief which set the ten thousand Illinoisians in 
the wigwam wild with enthusiasm, and which nomi- 
nated Abraham Lincoln on the second ballot. 

During the convention I chanced to sit at a small 
table with Thurlow Weed, and had an excellent op- 
portunity to study his face. I doubt if during his 
long and eventful life he ever experienced a greater 
disappointment or a keener sorrow than at that mo- 
ment. I saw him press his fingers hard upon his 
eyelids to keep back the tears. His plans had all 
miscarried. It was the sinking of a great hope. 
The rail-splitter, story teller — the ungainly, unedu- 
cated practitioner of the Sangamon bar — was the 
nominee instead of the able, learned, classical, pol- 
ished senator. The mob had nominated him ! Mr. 
Weed did not comprehend that the mob in the wig- 
wam was the best possible representative of the 
rising public opinion. All this is preliminary, but 
needful to adequately set forth subsequent scenes. 

III. 

On the morning after the adjournment of the con- 
vention a single passenger car, drawn by one of the 
fastest locomotives of the Illinois Central road, 
glided out from the Grand Central depot, bearing 



BY CHARLES CARLTON COFFIN. 1 67 

the committee appointed by the convention to no- 
tify Mr. Lincoln of his nomination. These were 
George Ashman, president of the convention, who 
had won great respect by his abiHty, manifested as a 
presiding officer; JuHus A. Andrews of Massachu- 
setts, in the vigor of manhood, who had electrified 
the convention by his eloquence and plain common 
sense ; George G. Fogg of New Hampshire, editor 
of the Independent Dcmon^at, printed at Concord, 
who, next to John P. Hale, had been instrumental in 
making New Hampshire a Republican State, after- 
wards Minister to Switzerland; Wm. B. Kelly of 
Pennsylvania, the veteran member of Congress, still 
representing his steadfast constituents ; Caleb Smith 
of Indiana, appointed to Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet ; 
Amos Tuck of New Hampshire, member of Con- 
gress with Mr. Lincoln; Norman B. Judd of Chi- 
cago, who had managed Mr. Lincoln's affairs, after- 
ward Minister to Berlin ; Judge Carter of Ohio (ap- 
pointed to a Washington judgeship), humorist, wit 
and off-hand speaker, who addressed the crowds at 
the railway stations, his speeches ending with the 
words, " In the race for the Presidency, the Little 
Giant (Douglas) will find that his coat-tails are too 
near the ground to beat Old Abe." It was an allu- 
sion to the difference in stature between the two 
candidates, responded to by a yell of delight on the 
part of Republicans, with groans from Democrats. 



1 68 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

There were in all, including correspondents, about 
thirty persons. 

The sun was setting when we reached Springfield. 
A crowd was gathering in the public square, not to 
welcome the committee but to listen to a speech 
from John A. McClelland (afterwards general), 
member of Congress from that district, in support 
of Mr. Douglas. 

It was past eight o'clock Saturday evening when 
the committee called upon Mr. Lincoln at his home 
— a plain, comfortable, two-storied house, a hallway 
in the center, a plain white paling in front. The 
arrival of the committee had awakened no enthu- 
siasm on the part of the townspeople. A dozen 
citizens gathered in the street. One of Mr. Lin- 
coln's sons was perched on the gate-post. The com- 
mittee entered the room at the left hand of the hall. 
Mr. Lincoln was standing in front of the fireplace, 
wearing a black frock-coat. He bowed, but it was 
not gracefully done. There was an evident con- 
straint and embarrassment. He stood erect, in a 
stiff and unnatural position, with downcast eyes. 
There was a diffidence like that of an ungainly 
school-boy standing alone before a critical audience. 
Mr. Ashman stated briefly the action of the conven- 
tion and the errand of the committee. Then came 
the reply, found in every "life" of Mr. Lincoln. It 
was a sympathetic voice, with an indescribable charm 




HOME OF LINCOLN, SPRINGFIELP, ILL. 



BY CHARLES CARLTON COFFIN. 1 69 

in the tones. There was no study of inflection or 
cadence for effect, but a sincerity which won instant 
confidence. The Hnes upon his face, the large ears, 
sunken cheeks, enormous nose, shaggy hair, the 
deep-set eyes, sparkhng with humor, and which 
seemed to be looking far away, were distinguishing 
facial marks. I do not know that any member of 
the company, other than Mr. Tuck of New Hamp- 
shire and some of the Western men, had ever ' 
seen him before, but there was that about him 
which commanded instant admiration. A stran- 
ger meeting him on a country road, ignorant of 
his history, would have said, " He is no ordinary 
man." 

Mr. Lincoln's reply was equally brief. With the 
utterance of the last syllable his manner instantly 
changed. A smile, like the sun shining through the 
rift of a passing cloud sweeping over the landscape, 
illuminated his face, lighting up every homely fea- 
ture, as he grasped the hand of Mr. Kelly. 

"You are a tall man. Judge. What is your 
height ? " 

" Six feet three." 

" I beat you. I am six feet four without my high- 
heeled boots." 

" Pennsylvania bows to Illinois. I am glad that 
we have found a candidate for the Presidency whom 
we can look up to, for we have been informed that 



I70 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

there were only little giants in Illinois," was Mr. 
Kelly's graceful reply. 

All embarrassment was gone. Mr. Lincoln was 
no longer the ungainly school-boy. The unnatural 
dignity which he had assumed for the moment, as a 
barrister of the Eno;lish bar assumes crown and horse- 
hair wig in court, was laid aside. Conversation 
flowed as freely and laughingly as a meadow brook. 
There was a bubbling up of quaint humor, fragrant 
with Western idiom, making the hour exceedingly 
enjoyable. 

" Mrs. Lincoln will be pleased to see you, gentle- 
men," said Mr. Lincoln. " You will find her in the 
other room. You must be thirsty after your long 
ride. You will find a pitcher of water In the library." 

I crossed the hall and entered the library. There 
were miscellaneous books on the shelves, two globes, 
celestial and terrestrial, in the corners of the room, 
a plain table with writing materials upon it, a pitcher 
of cold water, and glasses, but no wines or liquors. 
There was humor in the invitation to take a glass 
of water, which was explained to me by a citizen, 
who said that when it was known that the committee 
was coming, several citizens called upon Mr. Lincoln 
and informed him that some entertainment must be 
provided, 

"Yes, that is so. What ought to be done? Just 
let me know and I will attend to it," he said. 



BY CHARLES CARLTON COFFIN. I /I 

" O, we will supply the needful liquors," said his 
friends. 

"Gentlemen," said Mr. Lincoln, " I thank you for 
your kind intentions, but must respectfully decline 
your offer. I have no liquors in my house, and 
have never been in the habit of entertaining my 
friends in that way. I cannot permit my friends to 
do for me what I will not myself do. I shall pro- 
vide cold water — nothing else." 

What Mr. Lincoln's feelings may have been over 
his nomination will never be known; doubtless he 
was gratified, but there was no visible elation. After 
the momentarily assumed dignity he was himself 
again — plain Abraham Lincoln — man of the people. 

IV. 

I pass over a year and a half to October 21, 1861. 
I was in Washington. The Army of the Potomac 
was in camp on Arlington Heights, and at Alexan- 
dria McClellan was having his weekly reviews. 
There was much parade but no action. " All quiet 
on the Potomac," sent nightly by the correspondents 
to their papers, had become a by-word. -'. The after- 
noon was lovely — a rare October day. I learned 
early in the day that something was going on up 
the Potomac near Edwards' Ferry, by the troops 
under General Banks. What was going on no one 
knew, even at McClellan's head-quarters. It was 



172 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

near sunset when, accompanied by a fellow-corre- 
spondent, I went once more to ascertain what was 
taking place. We entered the anteroom and sent 
our cards to General McClellan. While waiting, 
President Lincoln came in, recognized us, reached 
out his hand, spoke of the beauty of the afternoon, 
while waiting for the return of the young lieutenant 
who had gone to announce his arrival. The lines 
were deeper in the President's face than when I saw 
him in his own home, the cheeks more sunken. 
They were lines of care and anxiety. For eighteen 
months he had borne a burden such as has fallen 
upon few men — a burden as weighty as that which 
rested upon the great law-giver of Israel. 

" Please to walk this way," said the lieutenant. 

We could hear the click of the telegraph in the 
adjoining room, and low conversation between the 
President and General McClellan, succeeded by si- 
lence, excepting the click-click of the instrument, 
which went on with its tale of disaster. 

Five minutes passed, and then Mr. Lincoln, unat- 
tended, with bowed head, and tears rolling down his 
furrowed cheeks, his face pale and wan, his heart 
heaving with emotion, passed through the room. He 
almost fell as he stepped into the street, and we 
sprang involuntarily from our seats to render assist- 
ance, but he did not fall. With both hands pressed 
upon his heart he walked down the street, not re- 



BY CHARLES CARLTON COFFIN. I 73 

turning the salute of the sentinel pacing his beat be- 
fore the door. 

General McClellan came a moment later. " I 
have not much news to give you," he said. " There 
has been a movement of troops across the Poto- 
mac at Edwards' Ferry, under General Stone, and 
Colonel Baker is reported killed. That is about all 
I can give you." 

At that moment the finale of the terrible disaster 
at Ball's Bluff was going on — the retreat to the river, 
the plunge into the swirling water to escape the mur- 
derous fire flam.ing upon them from the rifles of the 
victorious Confederates. It was the news of the death 
of Colonel E. D. Baker which stunned President Lin- 
coln. They were old-time friends, members of the 
Sangamon bar, had ridden the circuits together, been 
opponents in debate, but friends ever. So strong was 
the friendship, that Mr. Lincoln had named his sec- 
ond son Edward Baker. Colonel Baker had suc- 
ceeded him in Congress, had emigrated to California, 
to return a Senator, to become President Lincoln's 
strong right arm, to advance at a bound to the front 
as one of the most eloquent orators of that body. 
Well do I recall his tireless activity, commanding 
presence and height, and sparkling eye. His pres- 
ence was an inspiration. Ah ! what a scene was that 
a few weeks later when President Lincoln, supported 
by Senators Trumbull and Browning of Illinois, en- 



I 74 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

tered the draped chamber to attend the funeral ob- 
sequies of his old friend ! Again the tears rolled 
down his cheeks, as he heard the words of Senator 
McDougall, recalling the by-gone scenes. Turning 
toward Lincoln, he said, " He loved freedom, Anglo- 
Saxon freedom. Many years ago I heard him, on a 
star-lit night on the plains of the far West, recite the 
Battle of Ivry. At Ball's Bluff he was Henry of 
Navarre — 

" 'And if my standard-bearer fall, as fall full well he may, 
For never saw I promise yet of such a bloody fray — 
Press where ye see my white plume shine amid the rank of war, 
And be your oriflamme to-day the helmet of Navarre.' " 

I doubt if any other of the many tragic events of 
President Lincoln's life ever stunned him so much 
as that unheralded message which came over the 
wires while he was beside the instrument on that 
mournful day, October 21, 1861. 

V. 

I come to the spring of 1865. I had been in Sa- 
vannah, witnessed the departure of Sherman's army 
on its triumphant northern holiday march, had seen 
the old flag wave once more over Sumter, had 
heard the colored troops march through the streets 
of Charleston, singing "John Brown's body lies 
moldering in the grave," and was back once more at 



BY CHARLES CARLTON COFFLN. I 75 

City Point to witness the last drawing of the scene 
to Five Forks, which was designed by Grant to put 
an end to the struggle. President Lincoln was on 
the Ocean Queen, a river steamer, at City Point. 
Sherman had reached Goldsboro. His army was in 
need of supplies. He had opened the railroad to 
Newberne, but could not move on to Bucksville with- 
out provisions. He wished to confer with Grant 
before making the last move, and arrived at City 
Point on the afternoon of March 27. Grant had not 
expected him, and I doubt not his coming was an 
agreeable surprise, as it would enable the two com- 
manders to act in concert. 

I was early at General Grant's head-quarters on 
the morning of the 28th. Adjutant-General Bow- 
ers, whose acquaintance I made in 1862 on the 
Tennessee, was ever courteous. I was examining 
a map of the military situation which he laid before 
me, when, looking down the line of log huts which 
constituted the head-quarters' camp, I saw General 
Grant step upon the plank-walk, smoking as usual, 
and then the tall form of President Lincoln, wearing 
his stove-pipe hat. It was a mild spring morning, but 
he wore an overcoat. Next to emerge from the hut 
was Sherman, wearing an old slouch hat, his panta- 
loons tucked into his boots, his uniform faded and 
worn. He was talking rapidly and emphasizing his 
points with gesticulation. The three, Lincoln in the 



I 76 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

center, formed the front rank, and walked slowly 
toward the Adjutant-General's office, Sherman talk- 
ing, the others respectful listeners. In the second 
rank came Generals Meade, Ord, and Crook. It was 
a historical group — names which will live long in 
history. There were several other officers who had 
called to pay their respects to the President. 

They came into the Adjutant-General's office, 
the President taking the precedence. He saw 
and recognized me, extended his hand, and said 
smilingly : 

" What news have you ?" I never have been able 
to settle in my own mind the significance of the 
question, but I think humor prompted it, for in 
those days correspondents often sent news which 
was not altogether reliable. 

" I have just arrived from Charleston and Savan- 
nah," I replied. 

" Indeed ! " It was a tone indicative of a pleasant 
surprise. "Well, I am right glad to see you. How 
do the people like being back in the Union again?" 
he said, as he sat down in the chair placed for him 
by General Bowers. 

" I think some of them are reconciled to it," I 
replied, " if we may draw conclusions from the 
action of one planter, who, while I was there, came 
down the Savannah River with his whole family — 
wife, children, negro woman and her children, of 



BY CHARLES CARLTON COFFIN. 



177 



whom he was father — and with his crop of cotton, 
which he was anxious to sell at the highest price." 

The President's eyes sparkled, as they always did 
when his humor was aroused. 

" Oh, yes, I see," he said with a laugh which was 
peculiarly his own — " I see ; patriarchal times once 
more ; Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Hagar and Ishmael, 
all in one boat ! " He chuckled a moment, and 
added : 

*' I reckon they'll accept the situation now that 
they can sell their cotton." 

The maps were being placed for his inspection, 
that he migfht see the situation of the two armies— 
Grant's stretching beyond Thatcher's Run, ready to 
make its final move ; Sherman's at Goldsboro, in 
position to move upon Bucksville. 

" We shall be in position to catch Lee between 
our two thumbs," said Sherman, who did pretty 
much all the talking. Grant taking but little part. 
The stay was brief, the President going on board 
the Ocean Queen, and Sherman a little later eoinof 
on board the Bat^ a fleet craft which steamed 
rapidly down the James, carrying him to Moore- 
head City. During the afternoon Sheridan's cavalry 
was moving south past Petersburg and on to Five 
Forks. 



178 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

VI. 

I come to the morning of April 3d. It was not 
far from three o'clock when there was an explosion 
which aroused the whole army from its slumbers. 
The Confederates had blown up their ironclads in 
the James. Five Forks had been fought. Lee's 
lines were broken and his army in retreat. I was 
early in Petersburg. The Union troops, flushed 
with victory, conscious that the last hours of the 
Confederacy had arrived, were sweeping through the 
streets with wild hurrahs. I heard the whistle of the 
locomotive on the military railroad leading to City 
Point, and sav/ the train, a single car, which brought 
President Lincoln to the scene. The soldiers saw 
him, swung their hats, and gave a yell of delight. 
He lifted his hat and bowed. Perhaps I was mis- 
taken, but the lines upon his face seemed far deeper 
than I had ever seen them before. There was no 
sign of exultation in his demeanor. He mounted a 
horse, and under a small cavalry escort rode through 
the town. I did not follow him, but put spurs to 
my horse and rode alone to Richmond, over ground 
which twenty-four hours before had been swept by 
shot and shell, entering the city while the flames 
were still rolling heavenward from the buildings fired 
by the departing Confederates. The fire was raging 
on two sides of the Spotswood Hotel when I en- 



BY CHARLES CARLTON COFFLN. 179 

tered it. The clerk was the only person visible. 
He bowed from habit. 

" Can I have a room ? " I asked. 

" Take any room you please. I dare say you 
won't occupy it long. You see we are liable to be 
burnt out any moment." 

I took up the pen and wrote my name and resi- 
dence large — the first Yankee after the long list of 
majors, colonels and generals of the " C. S. A." 

The clerk looked at it and smiled. I wandered 
at will through the streets, beholding a woe-begone 
crowd gazing mournfully upon the scene of deso- 
lation, guarding the piles of furniture heaped upon 
the grass springing fresh and green in the Capi- 
tol square — bedding, tables, chairs, looking-glasses, 
crockery, children, weeping women, groups of old 
men, weak and irresolute, trying to guard the wreck 
of their property from the crowd of pilferers ready 
to seize the plunder. The troops of General Dev- 
en's division were doing provost guard duty, and 
the soldiers shared their rations with the women 

and children. 

VII. 

During the following forenoon I was in the Rep- 
resentatives' Chamber in the Capitol, when a plain, 
quick-stepping gentleman entered — Admiral Farra- 
gut, who had hastened in from Norfolk to take a 
look at the situation. Having the latest account of 



J go REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

what the army had done, I gave him the details of 
the last movement to Five Forks. He listened with 
intense interest, and said, " Thank God, it is about 
over." 

In the afternoon of the same day I was standing 
on the bank of the James, when I saw a boat 
pulled by twelve sailors coming up the river, and a 
moment later recoo-nized the tall form of the Presi- 
dent, with Admiral Porter by his side, Captain 
Adams of the Navy, Lieutenant Clemens of the 
Signal Corps, and the President's son Tad. 

Near at hand was a lieutenant directing the con- 
struction of a bridge across the canal. The men 
under his charge were negroes who had been im- 
pressed into service, and who were eager to work 
for their rations. 

" Would you like to see the man who made you 
free ? " I said to one of the negroes. 

" What, massa?" 

" Would you like to see Abraham Lincoln, who 
made you free ? " 

" Yes, massa." 

"There he is, that man with the tall hat." 

" Be dat Massa Linkinn?" 

" That is President Lincoln." 

" Hallelujah ! Hurrah, boys, Massa Linkinn's 
come ! " 

He swung his old straw hat, slapped his hands and 



BY CHARLES CARLTON COFFIN. jgi 

jumped into the air. In an instant the fifty negroes 
under the Heutenant were shouting it. They ran 
towards the landing, yelhng and shouting Hke luna- 
tics. I could hear the cry running up the streets 
and lanes, " Massa Linkinn — Massa Linkinn," and 
the next moment there was a crowd of sable-hued 
men and women and children with wondering white 
eyeballs rushing pell-mell towards the landing. 

President Lincoln recognized me. " Can you di- 
rect us to General Wirtzel's head-quarters?" he 
asked. 

I informed him that I could do so. The boat 
came alongside the landing. Six marines in blue 
caps and jackets, armed with carbines, stepped on 
shore, then the President and little Tad, Admiral 
Porter and the rest, followed by six more marines. * 
I indicated to Captain Adams the direction, and the 
procession under his lead began its march up the 
street toward Capitol Hill, the crowd increasing 
every moment, the cry of the delighted colored 
people rising like the voice of many waters. 

I recall a negro woman who was jumping in ec- 
stasy, clapping her hands, and shouting, " Glory ! 
glory ! glory ! " She could find no other words. 

Another had for her refrain, " Bress de Lord ! 
bress de Lord ! bress de Lord ! " 

The tropical exuberance of sentiment characteristic 
of the African race burst into full flower upon the 



lg2 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

instant, and no wonder. Abraham Lincoln was their 
Saviour, their Moses, who had brought them through 
the Red Sea and the desert to the promised land ; 
their Christ, their Redeemer. We who have always 
had our liberty, we cool-blooded Anglo-Americans, 
can have no adequate realization of the ecstasy of 
that moment on the part of those colored people of 
Richmond. They were drunk with ecstasy. They 
leaped into the air, hugged and kissed one another, 
surged around the little group in a wild delirium of 
joy. They would gladly have prostrated themselves 
before him — allowed him to walk on their bodies — if 
by so doing they could have expressed their joy. 

We reached the base of Capitol Hill. The after- 
noon was warm, and the President desired to rest. 
•The procession halted. The crowd had become so 
dense that it was difficult to advance, and a cavalry- 
man rode to General Shepley, who was placed in 
command of the city, for an escort. While thus 
resting, an old negro, wearing a few rags, whose 
white, crisp hair appeared through his crownless 
straw hat, lifted the hat from his head, kneeled 
upon the ground, clasped his hands, and said, " May 
de good Lord bress and keep you safe, Massa 
President Linkum." 

Mr. Lincoln lifted his own hat and bowed to the 
old man. The moisture gathered in his eyes. He 
brushed the tears away, and the procession moved 



BY CHARLES CARLTON COFFIN. 1 83 

on up the hill, a half dozen cavalrymen, with Gen- 
eral Shepley, opening the way. 

The procession reached Wirtzel's head-quarters — 
the mansion from which Jefferson Davis had taken 
his quick departure the previous Sunday. 

President Lincoln wearily ascended the steps, and 
by chance dropped into the very chair usually occu- 
pied by Mr. Davis when at his writing-table. 

Such was the entrance of the Chief of the Repub- 
lic into the capital of the late Confederacy. There 
was no sign of exultation, no elation of spirit, but. 
on the contrary, a look of unutterable weariness, as 
if his spirit, energy and animating force were wholly 
exhausted. 

The gentlemen who had been deputed to meet 
General Wirtzel in the early morning came in and 
were introduced. They were courteously and kindly 
received. 

Later in the afternoon I saw President Lincoln 
riding through the streets, taking a hasty glance at 
the scene of desolation and woe. There was no 
smile upon his face. Paler than ever his counte- 
nance, deeper than ever before the lines upon his 
forehead. The driver turned his horses towards 
the landing. The visit to the capital of the Con- 
federacy was ended. 

I never saw him again. A few weeks later the 
bullet of the assassin accomplished its fatal work, 



184 REMINISCENCES OF -ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

ending the earthly labors of this man of the people 
— whose influence was far wider than the Republic — 
held in such reverence that three years later I found 
myself drawn along the railway crossing the Apen- 
nines by the locomotive Abraham Lincoln. 

CHARLES CARLTON COFFIN. 




K^^OcJ y /6/^MU-^^.A>^/- 



IX. 

Frederick Douglass. 

1DO not know more about Mr. Lincoln than is 
known by countless thousands of Americans 
who have met the man. But I am quite willing 
to give my recollections of him and the impressions 
made by him upon my mind as to his character. 

My first interview with him was in the summer of 
1863, soon after the Confederate States had declared 
their purpose to treat colored soldiers as insurgents, 
and their purpose not to treat any such soldiers as 
prisoners of war subject to exchange like other sol- 
diers. My visit to Mr. Lincoln was in reference to 
this threat of the Confederate States. I was at the 
time engaged in raising colored troops, and I desired 
some assurances from President Lincoln that such 
troops should be treated as soldiers of the United 
States, and when taken prisoners exchanged like 
other soldiers ; that when any of them were hanged 
or enslaved the President should retaliate, I was 
introduced to Mr. Lincoln on this occasion by Sen- 
ator Pomeroy, of Kansas ; I met him at the Execu- 
tive Mansion. 



lS6 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

I was somewhat troubled with the thought of 
meeting one so august and high in authority, espe- 
cially as I had never been in the White House before, 
and had never spoken to a President of the United 
States before. But my embarrassment soon vanished 
when I met the face of Mr. Lincoln. When I en- 
tered he was seated in a low chair, surrounded by a 
multitude of books and papers, his feet and legs 
were extended in front of his chair. On my approach 
he slowly drew his feet in from the different parts 
of the room into which they had strayed, and he 
began to rise, and continued to rise until he looked 
down upon me, and extended his hand and gave me 
a welcome. I began, with some hesitation, to tell 
him who I was and what I had been doing, but 
he soon stopped me, saying in a sharp, cordial 
voice : 

" You need not tell me who you are, Mr. Douglass, 
I know who you are. Mr. Sewell has told me all 
about you." 

He then invited me to take a seat beside him. 
Not wishing to occupy his time and attention, see- 
ing that he was busy, I stated to him the object of 
my call at once. I said : 

" Mr. Lincoln, I am recruiting colored troops. I 
have assisted in fitting up two regiments in Massa- 
chusetts, and am now at work in the same way in 
Pennsylvania, and have come to say this to you, sir. 



BY FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 187 

if you wish to make this branch of the service suc- 
cessful you must do four things : 

" First — You must give colored soldiers the same 
pay that you give white soldiers. 

" Second — You must compel the Confederate 
States to treat colored soldiers, when taken pris- 
oners, as prisoners of war. 

" Third — When any colored man or soldier per- 
forms brave, meritorious exploits in the field, you 
must enable me to say to those that I recruit that 
they will be promoted for such service, precisely as 
white men are promoted for similar service. 

"Fourth — In case any colored soldiers are mur- 
dered in cold blood and taken prisoners, you should 
retaliate in kind." 

To this little speech Mr. Lincoln listened with 
earnest attention and with very apparent sympathy, 
and replied to each point in his own peculiar, 
forcible way. First he spoke of the opposition gen- 
erally to employing negroes as soldiers at all, of the 
prejudice against the race, and of the advantage to 
colored people that would result from their being 
employed as soldiers in defense of their country. 
He regarded such an employment as an experiment, 
and spoke of the advantage it would be to the 
colored race if the experiment should succeed. He 
said that he had difficulty in getting colored men 
into the United States uniform ; that when the pur- 



I 88 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

pose was fixed to employ them as soldiers, several 
different uniforms were proposed for them, and 
that it was something gained when it was finally 
determined to clothe them like other soldiers. 

Now, as to the pay, we had to make some conces- 
sion to prejudice. There were threats that if we 
made soldiers of them at all white men would not 
enlist, would not fight beside them. Besides, it was 
not believed that a negro could make a good soldier, 
as good a soldier as a white man, and hence it was 
thought that he should not have the same pay as a 
white man. But said he, 

" I assure you, Mr. Douglass, that in the end they 
shall have the same pay as white soldiers." 

As to the exchange and general treatment of col- 
ored soldiers when taken prisoners of war, he should 
insist to their being entitled to all privileges of such 
prisoners. Mr. Lincoln admitted the justice of my 
demand for the promotion of colored soldiers for 
good conduct in the field, but on the matter of re- 
taliation he differed from me entirely. I shall never 
forget the benignant expression of his face, the tear- 
ful look of his eye and the quiver in his voice, when 
he deprecated a resort to retaliatory measures. 

" Once begun," said he, " I do not know where 
such a measure would stop." 

He said he could not take men out and kill them 
in cold blood for what was done by others. If he 



BV FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 189 

could get hold of the persons who were guilty of 
killing the colored prisoners in cold blood, the case 
would be different, but he could not kill the innocent 
for the guilty. 

Before leaving Mr. Lincoln, Senator Pomeroy 
said : 

" Mr. President, Mr. Stanton is eoine to make 
Douglass Adjutant-General to General Thomas, and 
is going to send him down the Mississippi to re- 
cruit." 

Mr. Lincoln said in answer to this : 

" I will sign any commission that Mr. Stanton will 
give Mr. Douglass." 

At this point we parted. 

I met Mr. Lincoln several times after this inter- 
view. 

I was once invited by him to take tea with him at 
the Soldiers' Home. On one occasion, while visiting 
him at the White House, he showed me a letter he 
was writing to Horace Greeley in reply to some of 
Greeley's criticisms against protracting the war. He 
seemed to feel very keenly the reproaches heaped 
upon him for not bringing the war to a speedy con- 
clusion ; said he was charged with making it an Abo- 
lition war instead of a war for the Union, and ex- 
pressed his desire to end the war as soon as possible. 
While I was talking with him Governor Buckingham 
sent in his card, and I was amused by his telling the 



IQO REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

messenger, as well as by the way he expressed it, to 
" tell Governor Buckingham to wait, I want to have 
a long talk with my friend Douglass." 

He used those words. I said : " Mr. Lincoln, I 
will retire." "Oh, no, no, you shall not, I want 
Governor Buckingham to wait," and he did wait for 
at least a half hour. When he came in I was intro- 
duced by Mr. Lincoln to Governor Buckingham, and 
the Governor did not seem to take it amiss at all 
that he had been required to wait. 

I was present at the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln, 
the 4th of March, 1865. I felt then that there was 
murder in the air, and I kept close to his carriage on 
the way to the Capitol, for I felt that I might see 
him fall that day. It was a vague presentiment. 

At that time the Confederate cause was on its last 
legs, as it were, and there was deep feeling. I could 
feel it in the atmosphere here. I did not know ex- 
actly what it was, but I just felt as if he might be 
shot on his way to the Capitol. I cannot refer to 
any incident, in fact, to any expression that I heard, 
it was simply a presentiment that Lincoln might fall 
that day. I got right in front of the east portico of 
the Capitol, listened to his inaugural address, and 
witnessed his being sworn In by Chief Justice Chase. 
When he came on the steps he was accompanied 
by Vice-President Johnson. In looking out in the 
crowd he saw me standing near by, and I could see 



B Y FREDERICK DO UGLA SS. I 9 1 

he was pointing me out to Andrew Johnson. Mr. 
Johnson, without knowing perhaps that I saw the 
movement, looked quite annoyed that his attention 
should be called in that direction. So I got a peep 
into his soul. As soon as he saw me looking at 
him, suddenly he assumed rather an amicable ex- 
pression of countenance. I felt that, whatever else 
the man might be, he was no friend to my people. 

I heard Mr. Lincoln deliver this wonderful ad- 
dress. It was very short ; but he answered all the 
objections raised to his prolonging the war in one 
sentence — it was a remarkable sentence. 

" Fondly do we hope, profoundly do we pray, 
that this mighty scourge of war shall soon pass 
away, yet if God wills it continue until all the 
wealth piled up by two hundred years of bondage 
shall have been wasted, and each drop of blood 
drawn by the lash shall have been paid for by one 
drawn by the sword, we must still say, as was said 
three thousand years ago, the judgmients of the 
Lord are true and righteous altogether." 

For the first time in my life, and I suppose the 
first time in any colored man's life, I attended the 
reception of President Lincoln on the evening of 
the inauguration. As I approached the door I was 
seized by two policemen and forbidden to enter. I 
said to them that they were mistaken entirely in 
what they were doing, that if Mr. Lincoln knew that 



192 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

I was%t the door he would order my admission, and 
I bolted in by them. On the inside I was taken 
charge of by two other policemen, to be conducted 
as I supposed to the President, but instead of that 
they were conducting me out the window on a 
plank. 

" Oh," said I, " this will not do, gentlemen," and 
as a gentleman was passing in I said to him, "Just 
say to Mr. Lincoln that Fred. Douglass is at the 
door." 

He rushed in to 'President Lincoln, and almost in 
less than a half a minute I was invited into the 
East Room of the White House. A perfect sea of 
beauty and elegance, too, it w^as. The ladies were 
in very fine attire, and Mrs. Lincoln was standing 
there. I could not have been more than ten feet 
from him when Mr. Lincoln saw me ; his counte- 
nance lighted up, and he said in a voice which was 
heard all around : " Here comes my friend Doug- 
lass." As I approached him he reached out his 
hand, gave me a cordial shake, and said : " Doug- 
lass, I saw you in the crowd to-day listening to my 
inaugural address. There is no man's opinion that 
I value more than yours : what do you think of it ? " 
I said : " Mr. Lincoln, I cannot stop here to talk 
with you, as there are thousands waiting to shake 
you by the hand ; " but he said again : " What did 
you think of it?" I said: "Mr. Lincoln, it was a 



BY FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 



193 



sacred effort," and then I walked off. " I am glad 
you liked it," he said. That was the last time I saw 
him to speak with him. 

In all my interviews with Mr. Lincoln I was 
impressed with his entire freedom from popular 
prejudice against the colored race. He was the first 
great man that I talked with in the United States 
freely, who in no single instance reminded me of the 
difference between himself and myself, of the differ- 
ence of color, and I thought that all the more re- 
markable because he came from a State where there 
were black laws. I account partially for his kind- 
ness to me because of the similarity with which I 
had fought my way up, we both starting at the low- 
est round of the ladder. I must say this for Mr. 
Lincoln, that whenever I met him he was in a very 
serious mood. I heard of those stories he used to 
tell, but he never told me a story. I remember of 
one of Mr. Lincoln's stones being told me by Gen- 
eral Grant. I had called on him, and he said : 
" Douglass, stay here, I want to tell you about a lit- 
tle incident. When I came to Washington first, 
one of the first thingrs that Lincoln said to me was, 
' Grant, have you ever read the book by Orpheus C. 
Kerr?' 'Well, no, I never did,' said L Mr. Lin- 
coln said : ' You ought to read it, it is a very inter- 
esting book. I have had a good deal of satisfaction 

reading that book. There is one poem there that 
13 



194 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

describes a meeting of the animals. The substance 
of it being that the animals and a dragon, or some 
dreadful thing, was near by and had to be conquered, 
and it was a question as to who would undertake the 
job. By and by a monkey stepped forward and pro- 
posed to do the work up. The monkey said he 
thought he could do it if he could get an inch or 
two more put on his tail. The assemblage voted 
him a few inches more to his tail, and he went out 
and tried his hand. He was unsuccessful and re- 
turned, stating that he wanted a few more inches put 
on his tail. The request was granted, and he went 
again. His second effort was a failure. He asked 
that more inches be put on his tail and he would try 
a third time.' At last," said General Grant, " it got 
through my head what Lincoln was aiming at, as ap- 
plying to my wanting more men, and finally I said : 
' Mr. Lincoln, I don't want any more inches put on 
my tail.'" It was a hit at McClellan, and General 
Grant told me the story with a good deal of gusto. 
I got the book afterward and read the lines of Or- 
pheus C. Kerr. 

There was one thing concerning Lincoln that I 
was impressed with, and that was that a statement 
of his was an argument more convincing than any 
amount of logic. He had a happy faculty of stating 
a proposition, of stating it so that it needed no argu- 
ment. It was a rough kind of reasoning, but it went 



BY FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 195 

right to the point. Then, too, there was another 
feeHng that I had with reference to him, and that 
was that while I felt in his presence I was in the 
presence of a very great man, as great as the great- 
est, I felt as though I could go and put my hand on 
him if I wanted to, to put my hand on his shoulder. 
Of course I did not do it, but I felt that I could. I 
felt as though I was in the presence of a big brother, 
and that there was safety in his atmosphere. 

It was often said during the war that Mrs. Lincoln 
did not sympathize fully with her husband in his 
anti-slavery feeling, but I never believed this con- 
cerning her, and have good reason for being con- 
firmed in my impression of her by the fact that, when 
Mr. Lincoln died and she was about leaving the 
White House, she selected his favorite walking cane 
and said : " I know of no one that would appreciate 
this more than Fred. Douglass." She sent it to me 
at Rochester, and I have it in my house to-day, and 
expect to keep it there as long as I live. 

FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 



Lawrence Weldon. 

IN the summer of 1854 I became a citizen of De 
Witt County, Illinois, having emigrated from 
Ohio for the purpose of practicing law. At that time 
I knew something of Mr. Lincoln's history, having 
known of him while he was a member of Congress 
a few years before. I found he had a very strong 
hold upon popular affection, and stood high in the 
confidence of the people of the State. He was the 
leader of the bar, Judge Logan having substan- 
tially retired from the active practice ; and although 
he was but forty-five, he was alluded to in popular 
parlance as " old Mr. Lincoln ; " and in that con- 
nection I recall an incident occurring while he was a 
candidate for the Senate against Judge Douglas in 
1858. He delivered a speech at Clinton, and as we 
were riding in the " Inevitable procession " of Amer- 
ican politics, the "small boy" of the period said to 
one of his companions : " There ! there goes old Mr. 
Lincoln!" This was said in a tone to be heard by 
the immediate company, and Mr. Lincoln was asked 
how long they had been calling him old. Said he : 



198 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

" Oh, they have been at that trick many years. 
They commenced it when I was scarcely thirty." 

It seemed to amuse him ; he was not old enough 
to be sensitive about his age. 

The first time I met him was in September, 1854, 
at Bloomington ; and I was introduced to him by 
Judge Douglas, who was then making a campaign 
in defense of the Kansas- Nebraska bill. Mr. Lin- 
coln was attending court, and called to see the 
Judge. They talked very pleasantly about old times 
and things, and during the conversation the Judge 
broadened the hospitalities of the occasion by asking 
him to drink something. Mr. Lincoln declined very 
politely, when the Judge said: "Why, do you be- 
long to the temperance society?" He said : 

" I do not in theory, but I do in fact, belong to 
the temperance society, in this, to wit, that I do not 
drink anything, and have not done so for a very 
many years." 

Shortly after he retired, Mr. J. W. Fell, then and 
now a leading citizen of Illinois, came into the 
room, with a proposition that Mr. Lincoln and Mr. 
Douglas have a discussion, remarking that there 
were a great many people in the city, that the ques- 
tion was of great public importance, and that it 
would afford the crowd the luxury of listening to the 
acknowledged champions of both sides. As soon as 
the proposition was made it could be seen that the 



BY LA WHENCE WELDON. 



199 



Judge was irritated. He inquired of Mr. Fell, with 
some majesty of manner: "Whom does Mr. Lin- 
coln represent in this campaign — is he an Abolition- 
ist or an Old Line Whig ? " 

Mr. Fell replied that he was an Old Line Whig. 

" Yes," said Douglas, " I am now in the region 
of the Old Line Whig. When I am in Northern 
Illinois I am assailed by an Abolitionist, when I get 
to the center I am attacked by an Old Line Whig, 
and when I go to Southern Illinois I am beset by an 
Anti-Nebraska Democrat. I can't hold the Whig 
responsible for anything the Abolitionist says, and 
can't hold the Anti-Nebraska Democrat responsible 
for the positions of either. It looks to me like dog- 
ging a man all over the State. If Mr. Lincoln wants 
to make a speech he had better get a crowd of his 
own ; for I most respectfully decline to hold a dis- 
cussion with him." 

Mr. Lincoln had nothincr to do with the challengre 
except perhaps to say he would discuss the question 
with Judge Douglas. He was not aggressive in the 
defense of his doctrines or enunciation of his opin- 
ions, but he was brave and fearless in the protection 
of what he believed to be the right. The impression 
he made when I was introduced was as to his unaf- 
fected and sincere manner, and the precise, cautious, 
and accurate mode in which he stated his thoughts 
even when talking about commonplace things. 



200 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

In 1854 and down to the commencement of the 
war the circuit practice in IlHnois was still in vogue, 
and the itinerant lawyer was as sure to come as the 
trees to bud or the leaves to fall. In and among 
these Mr. Lincoln was the star ; he stood above and 
beyond them all. He traveled the circuit attending 
the courts of Judge David Davis's district, extend- 
ing from the center to the eastern boundary of the 
State, until he was nominated for the Presidency. 
He liked the atmosphere of a court-house, and 
seemed to be contented and happy when Judge 
Davis was on the bench and he had before him the 
"twelve orood and lawful men" who had been called 
from the body of the county to "well and truly try 
the issue." In every county in which he practiced 
he was among his friends and acquaintances ; he 
usually knew the most, and always the leading men 
on the jury. He was not what might be called an 
industrious lawyer, and when his adversary presented 
a reasonably good affidavit for a continuance, he was 
willing that the case should go over until the next 
term. He was particularly kind to young lawyers, 
and I remember with what confidence I always went 
to him, because I was certain that he knew all about 
the matter, and would most cheerfully tell me. I 
can see him now through the decaying memories of 
thirty years, standing in the corner of the old court- 
room, and as I approached him with a paper I did 
not understand, he said : 



BY LAWRENCE WELDON. 20I 

"Wait until I fix this plug for my 'gallis,' and I 
will pitch into that like a dog at a root." 

While speaking, he was busily engaged in trying 
to connect his suspender with his pants by making a 
"plug" perform the function of a button. Mr. Lin- 
coln used old-fashioned words, and never failed to 
use them if they could be sustained as proper. He 
was probably taught to say " gallows," and he never 
adopted the modern "suspender." 

In the convulsions of nations, how rapidly history 
makes itself ! Mr. Lincoln was the attorney of the 
Illinois Central Railroad Company, to assist the 
local counsel in the different counties of the circuit, 
and in De Witt County, in connection with the Hon. 
C. H. Moore, attended to the litigation of the com- 
pany. In '58 or '59 he appeared in a case which 
they did not want to try at that term, and Mr. Lin- 
coln remarked to the court : 

" We 'are not ready for trial." 

Judge Davis said : " Why is not the company 
ready to go to trial ?" 

Mr. Lincoln replied : " We are embarrassed by 
the absence or rather want of information from Cap- 
tain McClellan." 

The Judge said : " Who is Captain McClellan, 
and why is he not here ? " 

Mr. Lincoln said : " All I know of him is that he 
is the engineer of the railroad, and why he is not 
here this deponent saith not." 



202 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOIN 

In consequence of the absence of Captain McClel- 
lan the case was continued. Lincoln and McClellan 
had perhaps never met up to that time, and the 
most they knew of each other was that one was the 
attorney and the other the engineer of the IlHnois 
Central Railroad Company. In less than two years 
from that time the fame of both had spread as broad 
as civilization, and each held in his grasp the fate of 
a nation. The lawyer was directing councils and 
cabinets, and the engineer, in subordination to the 
lawyer as commander-in-chief, was directing armies 
ereater and grander than the combined forces of 
Wellington and Napoleon at Waterloo. 

Mr. Lincoln did not make a specialty of criminal 
cases, but was engaged frequently in them. He 
could not be called a great lawyer, measured by the 
extent of his acquirement of legal knowledge ; he 
was not an encyclopedia of cases, but in the text- 
books of the profession and in the clear perception 
of legal principles, with natural capacity to apply 
them, he had great ability. He was not a case law- 
yer, but a lawyer who dealt in the deep philosophy 
of the law. He always knew the cases which might 
be quoted as absolute authority, but beyond that he 
contented himself in the application and discussion 
of general principles. In the trial of a case he 
moved cautiously, and never examined, or cross- 
examined a witness to the detriment of his side. 



BY LA WRENCE WELDON. 



203 



If the witness told the truth he was safe from his 
attacks, but woe betide the unlucky and dishonest 
individual who suppressed the truth, or colored it 
against Mr. Lincoln's side. His speeches to the 
jury were very effective specimens of forensic ora- 
tory. He talked the vocabulary of the people, and 
the jury understood every point he made and every 
thought he uttered. I never saw him when I thought 
he was trying to make a display for mere display; 
but his imagination was simple and pure in the 
richest gems of true eloquence. He constructed 
short sentences of small words, and never wearied 
the mind of the jury by mazes of elaboration. 

The Kansas-Nebraska bill having been passed in 
May, 1854, great political excitement prevailed in 
Illinois because of the connection of Senator Doug- 
las with that measure. Mr. Douglas and Mr. 
Lincoln had been political antagonists as Whigs 
and Democrats, and when the Republican Party 
was formed in 1854 that antagonism continued, Mr. 
Douglas adhering to the Democratic Party and 
Mr. Lincoln becoming the leader of the Republican 
Party in Illinois. In 1858, during the campaign 
preceding the election of Senator, Mr. Lincoln made 
a speech at Springfield, on the i 7th of June, in which 
he charged a purpose on the part of Mr. Douglas, 
Mr. Buchanan, and Judge Taney to nationalize 
slavery. That speech is one of the most remarkable 



204 



REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



that he ever deHvered, and the one in which he 
used the expression, " a house divided against itself 
cannot stand." Mr. Douglas came to Illinois upon 
the adjournment of the Senate and made a speech in 
Chicago, in which he did not take occasion to con- 
tradict the charge made in Mr. Lincoln's Springfield 
speech. Mr. Lincoln then made another speech at 
Springfield, in which he noticed the fact that he 
made the charge referred to on the 17th of June; 
that Mr. Douglas had since then made a speech 
in Chicago, and did not deny it ; and, said he, in his 
second Springfield speech : " I am entitled to what 
the lawyers call a default, and I here take the default 
on him on that charge, he having refused and failed 
to answer." 

Some time in the latter part of July Mr. Douglas 
began his regular campaign in De Witt, that being a 
strong Buchanan county, Colonel Thomas Snell 
having organized the Danite party there in opposi- 
tion to Mr. Douglas, We wrote Mr. Lincoln that, 
inasmuch as Mr. Douglas was to begin his regular 
campaign there, he had better come and hear him ; 
and on the morning of the day the meeting was held 
Mr. Lincoln came to Clinton. There was an immense 
crowd for a country town, and the people were very 
much excited upon the subject of politics. 

On the way to the grove, Mr. Lincoln said : " I 
have challenged Judge Douglas for a discussion ; 



BY LAWRENCE WELDON. 205 

what do you think of it ? " I said : " The question 
is already settled ; but I approve your judgment in 
whatever you may do." Mr. Douglas spoke to an 
immense audience, and made one of the most forcible 
political speeches I ever heard. He spoke over three 
hours, in the course of which he took occasion to 
reply to Mr. Lincoln's Springfield speech, with ref- 
erence to the " default " which he said Mr. Lincoln 
in his second speech had sought to make against 
him. As he progressed in his argument he became 
very personal, and I said to Mr. Lincoln : " Do you 
suppose Douglas knows you are here ? " 

" Well," said he, " I don't know whether he does 
or not, he has not looked around in this direction ; 
but I reckon the boys have told him I am here." 

When Judge Douglas finished there was a great 
shout for Mr. Lincoln. He stepped on the seat very 
much excited, and said : 

" This is Judge Douglas's meeting. I have no 
right and therefore no disposition to interfere, but 
if you ladies and gentlemen desire to hear what I 
have to say on these questions, and will meet me to- 
night at the Court-house yard, / will try and answer 
the gentleman." 

Mr. Douglas was in the act of putting on his 
cravat, and turned in the direction of Mr. Lincoln. 
Both became poised in a tableau of majestic power. 
The scene exhibited a meeting of giants — a contest 



2o6 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

of oreat men — and the situation was dramatic in the 
extreme. 

Lincoln made a speech that night which in volume 
and force did not equal the speech of Judge Doug- 
las ; but for sound and cogent argument it was 
superior. Negro equality was then the bugbear of 
politics, and the Republican Party was defending it- 
self against these slanderous charges of the Democ- 
racy. Mr. Lincoln said in his speech : 

"Judge Douglas charges me with being in favor 
of negro equality, and to the extent that he charges I 
am not guilty. / am gtiilty of hating servitude and 
loving freedom ; and while I would not carry the 
equality of the races to the extent charged by my ad- 
versary, I am happy to confess before you that in 
some things the black man is the equal of the white 
man. In the risht to eat the bread his own hands 
have earned he is the equal of Judge Douglas or 
any other living man." 

When he spoke the last sentence he had stretched 
himself to his full height, and as he reached his hands 
toward the stars of that still night, then and there 
fell from his lips one of the grandest expressions of 
American statesmanship. 

After the meeting his friends congratulated him 
especially on the beauty of the thought in the last 
sentence of the quotation. 

He said : " Do you think that is fine?" and when 



BY LA WRENCE WELD ON. 20/ 

assured that it was, he laughingly said : " If you think 
so, I will get that off again." Mr. Douglas, having 
received a challenge from Mr. Lincoln, replied to him 
in a few days, and the memorable discussion was the 
result. 

Mr. Lincoln's resources as a story-teller were in- 
exhaustible, and no condition could arise in a case 
beyond his capacity to furnish an illustration with an 
appropriate anecdote. Judge Davis was always will- 
ing that he should tell a story in court, even if the 
gravity of the situation was for the time being sus- 
pended, and no one enjoyed the mirth of the occasion 
more than his honor on the bench ; but while that 
was true, the distinguished barrister was always def- 
erential and respectful toward the court, and' never 
forgot the professional amenities of the bar. 

In the debate with Judge Douglas " he builded 
better than he knew." He was preparing, as he 
thought, a stepping-stone to the Senate, but what 
was rejected then became the corner-stone in that 
fortune that raised him to the Presidency. When he 
was invited to deliver a speech at Cooper Institute, 
in February, i860, he hesitated about accepting. 
He said to his friends : " I don't know whether I 
shall be adequate to the situation ; I have never ap- 
peared before such an audience as may possibly 
assemble to hear me. I am appalled by the magni- 
tude of the undertaking." He was, however, relieved 



208 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

of his fear before he went by having, as he said, 
formulated a line of thought which would prevent a 
failure. 

In May, i860, a State Convention was held at 
Decatur to appoint delegates to Chicago. Mr. Lin- 
coln was there, and at that convention the rail move- 
ment was inaugurated by Governor Oglesby. He 
had formerly lived in that county, and had worked 
on a farm with Mr. John Hanks, who was still living, 
and it occurred to the Governor, in conversation with 
Mr. Hanks, that if they could get some of the rails 
that Lincoln and Hanks split it would be a good 
thing for the campaign ; and so on the day of the 
convention Oglesby arranged that just at the close 
of the business of the convention Mr. Hanks should 
march in with one of these rails on his shoulder, 
which he did ; and as Mr. Lincoln rose to speak, his 
attention was called to the rail. He said : 

" Fellow-citizens, it is true that many, many years 
ago John Hanks and I made rails down on the 
Sangamon. We made good, big, honest rails, but 
whether that is one of the rails, I am not, at this dis- 
tant period of time, able to say." 

That inauofurated the rail movement. He closed 
his reference to the rails with a eulogy on free labor 
embracing the finest thought of his theory upon that 
subject. At that convention the question was asked 
him whether he would attend the Chicao-o Conven- 



BY LA WHENCE JVELDON. 20Q 

tion, and he replied : " I am a little too much of a 
candidate to go, and not quite enough of a candidate 
to stay away ; but upon the whole I believe I will 
not go." 

Mr. Lincoln took no public part in the campaign 
of i860. He attended one political meeting, but de- 
clined to speak. On the day appointed by law the 
Republican electors met at Springfield and were 
entertained at dinner by Mr. J. C. Conkling, the 
elector for that district. Mr. Lincoln was there as 
one of the guests, and talked freely but sadly as to 
the condition of things incident to his election. Gov- 
ernor Yates, who had been elected Governor, was of 
the party, and expressed to him the necessity .of be- 
ing firm and determined. He replied that he hoped 
he would be adequate to the responsibility of the 
situation ; and that in his hands, as President, the 
Republic of Washington would not perish. How 
much work he did, at Springfield, in the preparation 
of his inaugural was not known by his most intimate 
friends. He may have consulted some of the mem- 
bers of his Cabinet who visited him before he left for 
Washington, but beyond them he kept his own coun- 
sel. That fact illustrates one of the distinguishing 
features of his character. As to the ordinary affairs 
of life he was indifferent — he listened to anybody; but 
when the highest and most important functions of 
duty were called into requisition he was one of the 



2IO REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

most self-reliant men of history. As President of the 
United States he was indifferent as to who was Min- 
ister to the Court of St. James or Postmaster at New 
York — councils and cabinets might decide such 
questions ; but when the question arose whether lib- 
erty was to be given to all, in the solitude of his un- 
measured genius the problem was solved. He was 
advised long before i860, by some of his more inti- 
mate friends, that his positions on the subject of 
slavery and human rights would be prejudicial to his 
party and to himself personally. He paid no atten- 
tion to such admonitions. The question with him 
was whether the thing was right, and not what his 
friends may have thought about the expediency of it. 

In almost all the situations of life, public or pri- 
vate, Mr. Lincoln had some anecdote to illustrate 
the situation. 

Durinof the war there was a contest between the 
military and civil authorities as to the policy of 
bringing out cotton from a certain insurrectionary 
district. The civil authorities having granted per- 
mission to do so were in favor of brinoflno- it out, 
and the military authorities in carrying out their 
belligerent operations were opposed to it. In that 
condition of things I was requested by some gentle- 
men in Washington that I find out from him what 
would be the probable result of the contest then ex- 
isting between the civil and military authorities as 



BY LA WRENCE WELDON. 2 I I 

to the policy of bringing cotton out of the seceded 
States. The permits that were issued by the Treas- 
ury Department were nulHfied by the miHtary au- 
thorities, and the matter was brought before the 
President as to what should be done. After hav- 
ing talked for a considerable time with him about 
other matters, I referred to the subject, and said 
that a number of gentlemen who were then in the 
city had requested me to ask him what would proba- 
bly be the result of the contest. As soon as I made 
the inquiry a pleasant smile came over his face, the 
memory of other days was with him, and he said : 
" By the way, what has become of our friend, 
Robert Lewis?" Mr. Lewis had for a number of 
years been clerk of the Circuit Court of De Witt 
County, and was a great personal friend of Mr. Lin- 
coln's. He M^as a great wit, and was very much en- 
joyed in his association by Mr. Lincoln. I remarked 
to the President that Mr. Lewis was still in his old 
home, and he then said : " Do you remember a story 
that Bob used to tell us about his going to Missouri 
to look up some Mormon lands that belong to his 
father?" I said: "Mr. President, I have forgotten 
the details of that story, and I wish you would tell 
it." He then said that when Robert became of age 
he found among the papers of his father's a number 
of warrants and patents for lands in North-east Mis- 
souri, and he concluded the best thing he could do 



212 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

was to go to Missouri and investigate the condition 
of things. It being before the days of railroads, he 
started on horseback with a pair of old-fashioned 
saddle-bags. When he arrived where he supposed 
his land was situated, he stopped, hitched his horse, 
and went into a cabin standing close by the road- 
side. He found the proprietor, a lean, lanky, leath- 
ery-looking man, engaged in the pioneer business of 
making bullets preoaratory to a hunt. Mr. Lewis 
observed, on entering, a rifle suspended on a couple 
of buck horns above the fire. He said to the man : 
"I am looking up some lands that I think belong to 
my father," and inquired of the man in what section 
he lived. Without having ascertained the section, 
Mr. Lewis proceeded to exhibit his title papers in 
evidence, and having established a good title as he 
thought, said to the man : " Now, that is my title, 
what is yours?" The pioneer, who had by this 
time become somewhat interested in the proceed- 
ing, pointed his long finger toward the rifle, and 
said: "Young man, do you see that gun?" Mr. 
Lewis frankly admitted that he did. " Well," said 
he, " that is my title, and if you don't get out of 
here pretty damned quick you will feel the force of 
it." Mr. Lewis very hurriedly put his title papers 
in his saddle-bags, mounted his pony, and galloped 
down the road, and, as Bob says, the old pioneer 
snapped his gun twice at him before he could turn 



BY LA IVRENCE WELDON. 2 1 3 

the corner. Lewis said that he had never been back 
to disturb that man's title since. " Now," said Mr. 
Lincoln, the " military authorities have the same 
title against the civil authorities that closed out 
Bob's Mormon title in Missouri. You may judge 
what may be the result in this case." 

When I returned to the hotel I told the story to 
the anxious cotton speculators, and they all under- 
stood what would be the policy of the administra- 
tion as well as if a proclamation had been issued. 
Mr. Lincoln was not in the habit of injecting his 
stories into an occasion, but told them as they were 
suggested by the incident of the conversation ; and 
the happy faculty of always being ready with one 
assisted and relieved him in the discharge of duties, 
from the humblest walks of life to the complex 
and complicated responsibilities of President of the 
United States. 

With all the jollity of his every-day life, in all but 
the surface indications of his character, he was sad 
and serious. The poem which he so often quoted, 
"Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?" 
was a reflex in poetic form of the deep melancholy 
of his soul. I have heard him, as he sat by the de- 
caying embers of an old-fashioned fire-place, when 
the day's merriment and business were over and the 
night's stillness had assumed dominion, quote at 
length his favorite poem. 



2 14 JiEMINISCEiVCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Another story is told illustrative of Mr. Lincoln's 
ability to relieve the embarrassment of his situation 
as President by a master-stroke of wit. In 1862 the 
people of New York City were apprehensive of a 
bombardment by some of the Confederate cruisers ; 
public meetings were held to express the gravity of 
the situation, and to induce the Government to do 
something by way of permanently protecting the 
city. In consummation of that purpose a delegation 
of fifty gentlemen, representing in their own right 
$100,000,000, was selected to visit Washington and 
have an interview with the President, and induce 
him to detail a gun-boat to protect the city. The 
committee requested a gentleman then staying at 
Washington to arrange with the President a time 
when he could see them. Mr. Lincoln seemed to 
be much puzzled what to say or do, and remarked 
to the gentleman who was arranging as to the inter- 
view : 

" I have no gun-boats or ships of war that can 
be spared from active service ; but, inasmuch as they 
have come to see me, I shall have to see them and 
get along as best I can." 

The committee called at the appointed time, and 
were introduced as gentlemen "representing $100,- 
000,000 in their own right." The chairman of the 
delegation made a very earnest appeal to the Presi- 
dent for protection, and remarked that they repre- 



BY LAWRENCE WELDON. 215 

sented the wealth of the city— " one hundred mil- 
lions in their own right." Mr. Lincoln heard them 
attentively, evidently impressed with the " hundred 
millions," and replied as follows : 

" Gentlemen, I am, by the Constitution, commander- 
in-chief of the army and navy of the United States, 
and, as a matter of law, I can order anything done 
that is practicable to be done ; but, as a matter of fact, 
I am not in command of the gun-boats or ships of 
war— as a matter of fact, I do not know exactly where 
they are, but presume they are actively engaged. 
It is impossible for me, in the condition of things, to 
furnish you a gun-boat. The credit of the Govern- 
ment is at a very low ebb. Greenbacks are not 
worth more than 40 or 50 cents on the dollar, and in 
this condition of things, if I was worth half as much 
as you gentlemen are represented to be, and as badly 
frightened as you seem to be, I would build a gun- 
boat and give it to the Government." 

The gentleman who accompanied the delegation 
says he never saw one hundred millions sink to such 
insignificant proportions as it did when that commit- 
tee recrossed the threshold of the White House, 
sadder but wiser men. They had learned that money 
as well as muscle was a factor of war. 

LAWRENCE WELDON. 




Ttl^AV', H -CA^VeNA \< 



n 



Onj Y-^. 



T 



XL 

Benjamin Perley Poore. 

HE election of Abraham Lincoln as President 
was very acceptable to the older Washington 
correspondents. They remembered him well in the 
XXXth Congress, when, as the Representative from 
the Sangamon district, he was the only Whig in 
the Illinois delegation, then but seven in number. 
In the drawing for seats his name had been one of 
the last called, and he had been obliged to content 
himself with a desk in the very outer row, about 
midway on the Speaker's left hand, where he had on 
one side of him Harmon S. Conger, of New York, 
and on the other John Gayle, of Alabama. There 
he used to sit patiently listening to the eloquence of 
John Ouincy Adams, Robert Toombs, David M. 
Barringer, Andrew Johnson, and others whose ge- 
nius and learning adorned the old Hall, and to the 
verbose platitudes of those less gifted. His own 
voice was never heard unless when he voted "aye" 

or " nay." 

During the Christmas holidays Mr. Lincoln found 
his way Tnto the small room used as*the post-office 



2l8 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

of the House, where a few jovial raconteurs used to 
meet almost every morning, after the mail had been 
distributed into the members' boxes, to exchange 
such new stories as any of them might have ac- 
quired since they had last met. After modestly 
standing at the door for several days, Mr. Lincoln 
was " reminded " of a story, and by New Year's he 
was recognized as the champion story-teller of the 
Capitol. His favorite seat was at the left of the 
open fire-place, tilted back in his chair, with his long 
legs reaching over to the chimney jamb. He never 
told a story twice, but appeared to have an endless 
repertoire of them, always ready, like the successive 
charges in a magazine gun, and always pertinently 
adapted to some passing event. 

It was refreshing to us correspondents, compelled 
as we were to listen to so much that was prosy and 
tedious, to hear this bright specimen of Western 
genius tell his inimitable stories, especially his rem- 
iniscences of the Black Hawk War, in which he 
had commanded a company, which was mustered 
into the United States service by Jefferson Davis, 
then second lieutenant of dragoons. 

I remember his narrating his first experience in 
drilling his company. He was marching with a front 
of over twenty men across a field, when he desired 
to pass through a gateway into the next inclosure. 

" I could not for the life of me," said he, " remem- 



BY BENJAMIX PERLEY POO RE. 219 

ber the proper word of command for getting my 
company endwise so that it could get through the 
gate, so as we came near the gate I shouted : ' This 
company is dismissed for two minutes, when it will 
fall in again on the other side of the gate ! ' " 

When the laugh which the description of these 
novel tactics caused had subsided, Mr. Lincoln 
added : 

" And I sometimes think here, that gentlemen in 
yonder who get into a tight place in debate, would 
like to dismiss the House until the next day and 
then take a fair start." 

Mr. Lincoln used to narrate his exploits in wrest- 
ling during this campaign, when he was regarded as 
the champion of Northern Illinois. One day the 
champion of the Southern companies in the expedi- 
tion challenged him. 

" He was at least two inches taller than I was," 
said Mr. Lincoln, "and somewhat heavier, but I 
reckoned that I was the most wiry, and soon after I 
had tackled him I gave him a hug, lifted him off the 
ground, and threw him flat on his back. That set- 
tled his hash." 

Soon after the Presidential campaign of 1848 was 
opened, Alfred Iverson, a Democratic Representative 
from Georgia, made a political speech, in which he ac- 
cused the Whigs of having deserted their financial and 
tariff principles, and of having " taken shelter under 



2 20 REMINISCENCES Of ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

the military coat-tails of General Taylor," then their 
Presidential candidate. This gave Mr. Lincoln as 
a text for his reply, "Military coat tails." He had 
written the heads of what he had intended to say on 
a few pages of foolscap paper, which he placed on 
a friend's desk, bordering on an alley-way, which he 
had obtained permission to speak from. At first he 
followed his notes, but, as he warmed up, he left his 
desk and his notes, to stride down the alley toward 
the Speaker's chair, holding his left hand behind him 
so theit he could now and then shake the tails of his 
own rusty, black broadcloth dress-coat, while he 
earnestly gesticulated with his long right arm, shak- 
ing the bony index finger at the Democrats on the 
other side of the chamber. Occasionally, as he would 
complete a sentence amid shouts of laughter, he 
would return up the alley to his desk, consult his 
notes, take a sip of water, and start off again. 

Toward the close of his speech, Mr. Lincoln poured 
a torrent of ridicule upon the military reputation of 
General Cass, and then alluded to his own exploits 
as a soldier in the Black Hawk War, "where," he 
continued, "I fought, bled, and came away. If Gen- 
eral Cass saw any live, fighting Indians at the battle 
of the Thames, where he served as aide-de-camp to 
General Harrison, it was more than I did; but I had 
a good many bloody struggles with the mosquitoes, 
and although I never fainted from the loss of blood, 



BY BENJAMIN PERLEY POORE. 22 1 

I can truly say I was often very hungry. Mr. 
Speaker," added Mr. Lincoln, "if I should ever con- 
clude to doff whatever our Democratic friends may 
suppose there is of black-cockade Federalism about 
me, and thereupon they shall take me up as their 
candidate for the Presidency, I protest they shall not 
make fun of me as they have of General Cass by at- 
tempting to write me into a military hero." 

Mr. Lincoln received hearty congratulations at the 
close, many Democrats joining the Whigs in their 
complimentary comments. The speech was pro- 
nounced by the older members of the House almost 
equal to the celebrated defence of General Harrison 
by Tom Corwin, in reply to an attack made on him 
by a Mr. Crary of Ohio. The two speeches are 
equally characterized by vigorous argument, mirth- 
provoking irony and original wit. One Democrat, 
however (who had been nicknamed " Sausage " 
Sawyer, from having moved the expulsion of "Rich- 
elieu " Robinson from the reporter's gallery for a 
facetious account of his lunching behind the Speak- 
er's chair on bologna sausage), didn't enthuse at all. 

" Sawyer," asked an Eastern Representative, " how 
did you like the lanky Illinolsian's speech ? Very 
able, wasn't it ? " 

" Well," replied Sawyer, " the speech was pretty 
good, but I hope he won't charge mileage on his 
travels while delivering it." 



2 22 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Mr. Lincoln boarded at Mrs. Spriggs, on Capitol 
Hill, where he had as his messmates the veteran 
Joshua R. Giddings, of Ohio ; John Blanchard, John 
Dickey, A. R. Mcllvaine, John Strohm, and James 
Pollock, of Pennsylvania ; Elisha Embree, of Indiana; 
and P. W. Tompkins, of Mississippi — all Whigs. 

Daniel Webster, who was then in the Senate, used 
occasionally to have Mr. Lincoln at one of his pleas- 
ant Saturday breakfasts, where the Western Con- 
gressman's humorous illustrations of the events of 
the day, sparkling with spontaneous and unpremedi- 
tated wit, would give great delight to "the solid men 
of Boston " assembled around the festive board. At 
one time Mr. Lincoln had transacted some legal 
business for Mr. Webster connected with an embryo 
city laid out where Rock River empties into the 
Mississippi. Mr. Fletcher Webster had gone there 
for a while, but Rock Island City was not a pecun- 
iary success, and much of the land on which but one 
payment had been made reverted to the original 
owners. Mr. Lincoln had charged Mr. Webster for 
his legal services $io, which the Great Expounder 
of the Constitution regarded as too small a fee, 
and he would frequently declare that he was still 
Mr. Lincoln's debtor. 

With these pleasant recollections of Mr. Lincoln, 
it was not strange that the older correspondents at 
Washington were glad to learn that he had been 



BY BENJAMIN Pil^ pOORE. 223 

elected President; nor did the^ ,.v.^ with Mr. 
Stanton, who indulged in tirades ag. "nst I\Ir. L 



Lin- 



coln, saying on one occasion he "had i.r.et him at 
the bar, and found him a low, cunnino- , : ,, , ' 
They remembered their genial, story-telling friend, 
and felt confident that he would be somewhat com- 
municative about public affairs, which President Bu- 
chanan was not. 

When Mr. Seward had Mr. Lincoln smuo-aled 
through Baltimore by night to avoid assassination, 
there was some indignation manifested at Washing- 
ton, for but very few credited the rumors afloat. 
Senator Sumner was one of those who believed 
that the President-elect was in danger of assassina- 
tion, and he wrote him after his arrival, cautioning 
him about going out at night. 

" Sumner," said Mr. Lincoln, "declined to stand 
up with me, back to back, to see which was the 
tallest man, and made a fine speech about this 
being the time for uniting our fronts against the 
enemy and not our backs. But I guess he was 
afraid to measure, though he is a good piece of a 
man. I have never had much to do with bishops 
where I live, but, do you know, Sumner is my idea 
of a bishop." 

Mr. Lincoln gave a cordial greeting to me when I 
called on him after his arrival at Willard's Hotel, 
and he indulged in some pleasant reminiscences of 



2 24 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

his Congressiona.l career. Of course I talked with 
him about his forthcoming message, and after hav- 
ing made me promise that what he told me should 
not get into print, he gave me an account of it. He 
had written it at his Springfield home, and had had 
it put in type by his friend, the local printer. A 
number of sentences had been reconstructed several 
times before they were entirely satisfactory, and 
then four copies had been printed on foolscap 
paper. These copies had been locked up in what 
Mr. Lincoln called a "gripsack," and intrusted to 
his eldest son Robert. 

" When we reached Harrisburg," said Mr. Lin- 
coln, " and had washed up, I asked Bob where 
the message was, and was taken aback by his con- 
fession that in the excitement caused by the en- 
thusiastic reception he believed he had let a waiter 
take the gripsack. My heart went up into my 
mouth, and I started down-stairs, where I was told 
that if a waiter had taken the gripsack I should 
probably find it in the baggage-room. Going there 
I saw a large pile of gripsacks and other baggage, 
and thought that I discovered mine. My key fitted 
it, but on opening there was nothing inside but a 
few paper collars and a flask of whiskey. A few 
moments afterward I came across my gripsack, with 
the document in it all right, and now I will show it 
to you — on your honor, mind ! " 



BY BENJAMIN PERLEY POORE. 225 

The inaugural was printed in clear-sized type, 
and wherever Mr. Lincoln had thought that a para- 
graph would make an impression upon his audi- 
ence, he had preceded it with a typographical fist, 
thus : 1^^. 

One copy of this printed draft of the inaugural 
message was given to Mr. Seward, and another to 
the venerable Francis P. Blair, with request that 
they would read and criticise; and Mr. Nicolay, who 
was to be the President's private secretary, made the 
corrected copy in a fair hand, which Mr, Lincoln 
was to read. Mr. Nicolay corrected another copy, 
which was furnished to the press for publication, 
and which I now own. 

At the inauguration, when Mr. Lincoln came out 
on the platform in front of the eastern portico of 
the Capitol, his tall, gaunt figure rose above those 
around him. His personal friend, Senator Baker, of 
Oregon, introduced him to the assemblage, and as 
he bowed acknowledgments of the somewhat faint 
cheers which greeted him, the usual genial smile lit 
up his angular countenance. He was evidently per- 
plexed, just then, to know what to do with his new 
silk hat and a large, gold-headed cane. The cane he 
put under the table, but the hat appeared to be too 
good to place on the rough boards. Senator Doug- 
las saw the embarrassment of his old friend, and, 

rising, took the shining hat from its bothered owner 
15 



2 26 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

and held it during the delivery of the inaugural ad- 
dress. 

Mr. Lincoln was listened to with great earnestness, 
and evidently desired to convince the multitude be- 
fore him rather than to bewilder or dazzle them. It 
was plain that he honestly believed every word that 
he spoke, especially the concluding paragraphs, one 
of which I copy from the original print : 

"1^" I am loath to close. We are not enemies, 
but friends. We must not be enemies. Though 
passion may be strained, it must not break our 
bonds of affection. |^" The mystic chords of mem- 
ory, which stretch from every battle-field and patriot 
grave to every loved heart and hearthstone all over 
our broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the 
Union when again touched, as they surely will be, 
by the better angels of our nature." 

The White House, while Mr. Lincoln occupied it, 
was a fertile field for news, which he was always 
ready to give those correspondents in whom he had 
confidence, but the surveillance of the press — first 
by Secretary Seward and then by Secretary Stan- 
ton — was as annoying as it was inefficient. A cen- 
sorship of all matter filed at the Washington office 
of the telegraph, for transmission to difYerent North- 
ern cities, was exercised by a succession of ignorant 
individuals, some of whom had to be hunted up at 
whiskey shops when their signature of approval was 



BY BENJAMIN PER LEY POORE. 22/ 

desired A Congressional investigation showed how 
stupidly the censors performed their duty. Inno- 
cent sentences which were supposed to have a hid- 
den meaning were stricken from paragraphs which 
were thus rendered nonsensical, and information 
was rejected that was clipped in print from the 
Washington papers, which it was known regularly 
found their way into " Dixie." 

When irate correspondents appealed to Mr. Lin- 
coln, he would good-naturedly declare that he had 
no control over his secretaries, and would endeavor 
to mollify their wrath by telling them a story. One 
morning in the winter of 1862, when two angry 
journalists had undertaken to explain the annoy- 
ances of the censorship, Mr. Lincoln, who had lis- 
tened in his dreamy way, finally said : 

" I don't know much about this censorship, but 
come down-stairs and I will show you the origin of 
one of the pet phrases of you newspaper fellows." 

Leading the way down into the basement, he 
opened the door of a larder, and solemnly pointed 
to the hanging carcass of a gigantic sheep. 

"There," said he, "now you know what ' Revenons 
a iios montoiis ' means. It was raised by Deacon Buf- 
fum at Manchester, up in New Hampshire. Who 
can say, after looking at it, that New Hampshire's 
only product is granite ? " 

Often when Mr. Lincoln was engaged, correspond- 



2 28 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

ents would send in their cards, bearing requests for 
some desired item of news, or for the verification of 
some rumor. He would either come out and give 
the coveted information, or he would write it on the 
back of the card, and send it to the owner. He 
wrote a legible hand, slowly and laboriously perfect- 
ing his sentences before he placed them on paper. 
The long epistles that he wrote to his generals he 
copied himself, not wishing any one else to see them, 
and these copies were kept in pigeon-holes for refer- 
ence. His remarks at Gettysburg, which have been 
compared to the Sermon on the Mount, were written 
in the car on his way from Washington to the battle-' 
field, upon a piece of pasteboard held on his knee, 
with persons talking all around him ; yet when a 
few hours afterward he read them, Edward Everett 
said : 

" I would rather be the author of those twenty 
lines than to have all the fame my oration of to-day 
will ofive me." 

The foreign war correspondents who came to 
Washington quite outshone us resident scribes by 
their pretensions and the style in which they lived. 
The most agreeable of them was Mr. Edward Dycey- 
who had written a readable book on Count Cavour ; 
the most versatile was George Augustus Sala, and 
the most brilliant was Vizetelly, whose clever pencil- 
sketches were in great demand. Anthony Trollope, 



BY BENJAMIN PERLEY POORE. 229 

who visited Washington on postal business and cor- 
responded with a London weekly, was "English, you 
know ; " and, overtopping all the others — in his own 
estimation at least — was Dr. Russell, of the London 
Times. He organized private theatricals at the 
British Legation, appearing himself as Bombastes 
Furioso ; and he gave pleasant breakfast and supper 
parties. When the Army of the Potomac was at last 
ready to move, he obtained a head-quarter pass for 
himself and his well-stocked ambulance. But when 
he drove down to the steamer Canonicus, on which 
transportation had been given him, the provost 
guard refused, by orders from the War Department, 
to permit him to embark. He hastened to enlist the 
intercession of Senator Sumner and Lord Lyons, the 
British Minister, who appealed to Secretary Stanton, 
but found him inexorable. Secretary Seward said 
that he was powerless, and Mr. Lincoln refused to 
interfere, saying grimly : 

" This fellow Russell's Bull Run letter was not so 
complimentary as to entitle him to much favor." 

Unable to accompany the army, Dr. Russell sold 
his expensive ambulance and horses, shook the dust 
from his feet, and returned to London. 

Requests for his autograph signature were a source 
of annoyance to Mr. Lincoln, who often had to sign 
his name twenty-five or thirty times a day. When 
Dr. R. Shelton Mackenzie, of Philadelphia, called at 



230 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

the White House and asked for the President's 
autograph, Mr. Lincoln said : 

" Will you have it on a card or on a sheet of 
paper?" 

" If the choice rested with myself," said the jovial 
doctor, " I should prefer it at the foot of a com- 
mission." 

Mr. Lincoln smiled, and shook his head as if he 
did not see it in that light, but he sat down and 
wrote a few pleasant lines, adding his legible signa- 
ture, " A. Lincoln." 

After having signed the famous Emancipation 
Proclamation on the ist of January, 1863, Mr. Lin- 
coln carefully put away the pen which he had used, 
for Mr. Sumner, who had promised it to his friend 
George Livermore, of Cambridge, the author of an 
interesting work on slavery. It was a steel pen with 
a wooden handle, the end of which had been gnawed 
by Mr. Lincoln — a habit that he had when compos- 
ing anything that required thought. 

Mr. Lincoln used to wear at the White House, in 
the morning and after dinner, a long-skirted, faded 
dressing-gown, belted around his waist, and slippers. 
His favorite attitude when listening — and he was a 
good listener — was to lean forward and clasp his left 
knee with both hands, as if fondling it, and his face 
would then wear a sad, wearied look. But when the 
time came for him to give an opinion on what he had 



BV BENJAMIN PERLEY POORE. 23 I 

heard, or to tell a story, which something said "re- 
minded him of," his face would lighten up with its 
homely, rugged smile, and he would run his fingers 
through his bristly black hair, which would stand 
out in every direction like that of an electric experi- 
ment doll. 

Mr. Lincoln's part in subduing the rebellion will 
be better appreciated as time clears away the mists 
of race prejudice and the fogs of political intrigue. 
He was surrounded by able men, widely differing in 
opinion on the negro, but each one hoping that he 
would be President of the United States. To curb 
their ambitions, to humor their prejudices, and to 
make them, as he once expressed it, " pull in the 
traces," was no easy task, and required such a self- 
sacrificing man, of large brain and heart, to direct 
public affairs, as was Abraham Lincoln. 

BENJAMIN PERLEY POORE. 



XII. 

Titian J. Coffey. 

FEW men have had the opportunity to render 
services so important and beneficial to the coun- 
try and humanity as Abraham Lincoln. But we may 
question whether his career as President and Eman- 
cipator through the trying scenes of the great Civil 
War, or even the tragic and touching incidents of 
his untimely death, would have excited and kept 
alive the affectionate and ever-increasing interest in 
his character, if that character had not been marked 
by traits, some of them quaint, original and homely, 
that appealed to the common heart of mankind and 
revealed that touch of nature that makes the whole 
world kin. It has been often and truthfully said of 
him that he was a man whose heart lay close to the 
great popular heart and felt its beatings. Even after 
he had reached the perilous elevation of the White 
House, where the truth is apt to be seen through 
very refracted mediums, he never for a moment lost 
the faculty of reading the mind of those whom he 
called " the plain people." In truth he was, by birth, 
education, experience and sympathy, one of "the 



2 34 REMIiVISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLA' 

plain people " himself, and the traits that make him 
so uniquely interesting were simply the outgrowth 
of a mind original and vigorous, and a kindly heart 
developed by and taking shape from the modes of 
thought and expression, the habits and manner of 
life of the people amid whom he had been brought 
up and lived. Born in England or Massachusetts, 
and educated in conventional fashion at Oxford or 
Harvard, he would doubtless have been a man of 
mark and power, but he would not have been the 
Abraham Lincoln whom the people knew and loved. 
The training of the schools would probably have 
polished away, not indeed the native humor and 
shrewd faculty of observation, but that quaint and 
original habit of thought and speech which found 
constant expression in racy and effective phrase and 
in stories of Western life, often homely but never 
obscene, and always singularly apt in illustration. 

But I am not writing an essay on Mr. Lincoln's char- 
acter or genius. My less ambitious work is to record 
a few examples of his *' preaching by parables," and 
of his habit of condensing an idea into a single tell- 
ing phrase. 

When these incidents happened I may premise 
that I was in the public service, and, by virtue of a 
custom established by Mr. Lincoln, I had occasional 
access to the Cabinet meetings during the absence 
of my departmental chief, the Attorney-General. 



BY TITIAN J. COFFEY. 2 35 

The skill and success with which Mr. Lincoln 
would dispose of an embarrassing question or avoid 
premature committal to a policy advocated by others 
is well known. He knew how to send applicants 
away in good humor even when they failed to ex- 
tract the desired response. 

A story told of him after General Cameron's re- 
tirement from the War Department illustrates this 
habit. Every one knows that Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet 
was chosen chiefly from his rivals for the Presiden- 
tial nomination, and from considerations largely 
political. But the exigencies of the war demanded, 
in the opinion of many good Republicans, a reorgan- 
ization of the Cabinet based on the special fitness of 
each member for the great work in hand. Of this 
opinion were some of the leading Republican Sen- 
ators. After the retirement of General Cameron 
they held a caucus and appointed a committee to 
wait on the President. The committee represented 
that, inasmuch as the Cabinet had not been chosen 
with reference to the war, and had more or less lost 
the confidence of the country, and since the Presi- 
dent had decided to select a new War Minister, they 
thought the occasion was opportune to change the 
whole seven Cabinet Ministers. They therefore ear- 
nestly advised him to make a clean sweep and select 
seven new men, and so restore the waning confidence 
of the country. 



236 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

The President listened with patient courtesy, and 
when the Senators had concluded he said, with a 
characteristic gleam of humor in his eye : 

" Gentlemen, your request for a change of the 
whole Cabinet because I have made one change 
reminds me of a story I once heard in Illinois of a 
farmer who was much troubled by skunks. They 
annoyed his household at night, and his wife insisted 
that he should take measures to get rid of them. 
One moonlight night he loaded his old shot-gun and 
stationed himself in the yard to watch for the in- 
truders, his wife remaining in the house anxiously 
awaiting the result. After some time she heard the 
shot-gun go off, and in a few minutes the farmer en- 
tered the house. 'What luck had you?' said she. 
' I hid myself behind the wood-pile,' said the old 
man, 'with the shot-gun pointed toward the hen- 
roost, and before long there appeared not one skunk 
but seveit. I took aim, blazed away, killed one, and 
he raised such a fearful smell that I concluded it was 
best to let the other six go.' " 

With a hearty laugh the Senators retired, and 
nothing more was heard of Cabinet reconstruction. 

One of Mr. Lincoln's most amiable qualities was 
the patience and gentleness with which he would 
listen to people who thought they had wrongs to 
redress or claims to enforce. But sometimes, when 
his patience had been abused for selfish or unworthy 



BY TITIAN J. COFFEY. 237 

purposes, he was quite capable of administering a 
caustic rebuke in his own way. 

One day, when he was alone and busily engaged 
on an Important subject, involving vexation and anx- 
iety, he was, by some mischance, disturbed by the 
unwarranted intrusion of three men, who, without 
apology, proceeded to lay their claim before him. 
The spokesman of the three reminded the President 
that they were the owners of some torpedo or other 
warlike invention which, if the government would 
only adopt it, would soon crush the rebellion. 
" Now," said the spokesman, " we have been here to 
see you time and again ; you have referred us to the 
Secretary of War, to the Chief of Ordnance, and the 
General of the Army, and they give us no satisfac- 
tion. We have been kept here waiting, till money 
and patience are exhausted, and we now come to 
demand of you a final reply to our application." 

Mr. Lincoln listened quietly to this insolent tirade, 
and at Its close the old twinkle came into his eye. 

"You three gentlemen remind me of a story I 
once heard," said he, " of a poor little boy out West 
who had lost his mother. His father wanted to give 
him a religious education, and so placed him in the 
family of a clergyman, whom he directed to instruct 
the little fellow carefully In the Scriptures. Every 
day the boy was required to commit to memory and 
recite one chapter of the Bible. Things proceeded 



238 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

smoothly until they reached that chapter which de- 
tails the story of the trials of Shadrach, Meshach, and 
Abednego in the fiery furnace. The boy got on well 
until he was asked to repeat these three names, but 
he had forgotten them. His teacher told him he 
must learn them, and gave him another day to do so. 
Next day the boy again forgot them. ' Now,' said 
the teacher, ' you have again failed to remember 
those names, and you can go no further till you have 
learned them. I will give you another day on this 
lesson, and if you don't repeat the names I will pun- 
ish you.' A third time the boy came to recite, and 
got down to the stumbling-block, wLen the clergy- 
man said : ' Now tell me the names of the men In the 
fiery furnace.' ' Oh,' said the boy, ' here come those 
three infernal bores ! I wish the devil had them ! ' " 

Having received their " final answer " the three 
patriots retired, and at the Cabinet meeting which 
followed directly after, the President, In high good 
humor, related how he had dismissed his untimely 
visitors. 

The humorous aspect of a subject never failed to 
strike him, and the illustrative story was as ready 
for a grave matter of business as in its lighter 
hours. Often during the war United States mar- 
shals made arrests and seizures, the legality of which 
would be tested by judicial proceedings against 
them. For their protection Congress appropriated 



BY TI TIA N J. COFFE Y. 239 

$100,000, to be expended under the direction of the 
President in defending United States officers in 
such suits. Some of the marshals thus sued had 
been clamorous for orders from the Attorney-Gen- 
eral to the United States district-attorneys to de- 
fend these suits. But when it became known that 
the President had $too,ooo for this purpose the 
marshals ceased to importune the Attorney-General 
for counsel, and " went " for the money. 

In submitting to the President some rules for his 
approval under which the fund should be paid to 
- the marshals, I spoke of the fact that they no longer 
sought the aid of the district-attorneys but were 
all anxious to get control of the money. " Yes," 
said he, " they will now all be after the money and 
be content with nothing else. They are like a man 
in Illinois, whose cabin was burned down, and ac- 
cording to the kindly custom of early days in the 
West, his neighbors all contributed something to 
start him again. In his case they had been so lib- 
eral that he soon found himself better off than be- 
fore the fire, and he got proud. One day, a neigh- 
bor brought him a bag of oats, but the fellow re- 
fused it with scorn. ' No.' said he, ' I'm not taking 
oats now. I take nothing but money.' " 

A friend of mine was one of a delegation who 
called on Mr. Lincoln to ask the appointment of 
a gentleman as Commissioner to the Sandwich Isl- 



240 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

ands. They presented their case as earnestly as 
possible, and, besides his fitness for the place, they 
urged that he was in bad health, and a residence 
in that balmy climate would be of great benefit to 
him. The President closed the interview with this 
discouraging remark : 

" Gentlemen, I am sorry to say that there are 
eight other applicants for that place, and they are all 
sicker than your man." 

Many examples might be given of felicitous 
phrases, often of rustic origin, that gave point to his 
speech. Once, presenting to him an eminent law- 
yer, the President courteously said he was familiar 
with the Judge's professional reputation. The Judge 
responded : 

" And we do not forget that you, too, Mr. Presi- 
dent, are a distinguished member of the bar." 

" Oh," said Mr. Lincoln modestly, " I'm only a 
m-ast-fed lawyer." 

If there be any who do not see the point of this 
quaint suggestion of a self-educated lawyer, let them 
look at the illustration from Dr. South under the 
word " mast " in Webster's Dictionary. 

When Attorney-General Bates resigned, late in 
1864 (following the resignation of Postmaster-Gen- 
eral Blair earlier in that year), the Cabinet was 
left without a Southern member. A few days be- 
fore the meeting of the Supreme Court, which then 



BY TITIAN J. COFFEY. 24 1 

met in December, Mr. Lincoln sent for me and 
said : 

" My Cabinet has shrunk tip North, and I must 
find a Southern man. I suppose if the twelve 
Apostles were to be chosen nowadays the shrieks 
of locality would have to be heeded. I have invited 
Judge Holt to become Attorney-General, but he 
seems unwilling to undertake the Supreme Court 
work. I want you to see him, remove his objection 
if you can, and bring me his answer." 

I then had charge of the government cases in 
the Supreme Court, and they were all ready for 
argument. I saw Judge Holt, explained the situa- 
tion, and assured him that he need not appear in 
court unless he chose to do so. He had, however, 
decided to decline the invitation, and I returned to 
the President and so informed him. 

"Then," said he, 'T will offer it to James Speed, 
of Louisville, a man I know well, though not so well 
as I know his brother Joshua. That, however, is 
not strange, for I slept with Joshua for four years, 
and I suppose I ought to know him well. But 
James is an honest man and a gentleman, and if he 
comes here you will find he is one of those well- 
poised men, not too common here, who are not 
spoiled by a big office." 

Mr. Lincoln was himself a perfect illustration of 

that remark. His modest, manly nature was quite 

16 



242 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

unaffected by the accidents of place and power. It 
was a common saying that he was far more acces- 
sible than many a chief of bureau or clerk. Many 
authentic anecdotes are told to show the kindness 
with which he received and heard the stories of 
those whom the sorrows of the war brought to him 
for relief, and no bruised heart ever came to him to 
invoke Executive clemency or assistance that did 
not go away, if not healed, at least consoled and 
grateful for patient hearing and kindly sympathy. 

In the spring of 1863, a very handsome and at- 
tractive young lady from Philadelphia came to my 
office with a note from a friend, asking me to assist 
her in obtaining an interview with the President. 
Some time before she had been married to a young 
man who was a lieutenant in a Pennsylvania regi- 
ment. He had been compelled to leave her the day 
after the wedding to rejoin his command in the 
Army of the Potomac. After some time he obtained 
leave of absence, returned to Philadelphia, and 
started on a brief honeymoon journey with his bride. 
A movement of the army being imminent, the War 
Department issued a peremptory order requiring all 
absent officers to rejoin their regiments by a certain 
day on penalty of dismissal in case of disobedience. 
The bride and groom, away on their hurried wedding 
tour, failed to see the order, and on their return he 
was met by a notice of his dismissal from the service. 



BY TITIAN J. COFFEY. 2A.% 

The young fellow was completely prostrated by the 
disgrace, and his wife hurried to Washington to get 
him restored. I obtained for her an interview with 
the President. She told her story with simple and 
pathetic eloquence, and wound up by saying : 

"Mr. Lincoln, won't you help us? I promise you, 
if you will restore him, he will be faithful to his 
duty." 

The President had listened to her with evident 
sympathy, and a half-amused smile at her earnest- 
ness, and as she closed her appeal he said with pa- 
rental kindness : 

"And you say, my child, that Fred was compelled 
to leave you the day after the wedding ? Poor fel- 
low, I don't wonder at his anxiety to get back, and 
if he stayed a little longer than he ought to have 
done we'll have to overlook his fault this time. 
Take this card to the Secretary of War and he will 
restore your husband." 

She went to the War Department, saw the Sec- 
retary, who rebuked her for troubling the President, 
and dismissed her somewhat curtly. As it hap- 
pened, on her way down the War Department 
stairs, her hopes chilled by the Secretary's abrupt 
manner, she met the President ascending. He 
recognized her, and with a pleasant smile said : 

"Well, my dear, have you seen the Secretary?" 

"Yes, Mr. Lincoln," she replied, "and he seemed 



244 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

very angry with me for going to you. Won't you 
speak to him for me ? " 

" Give yourself no trouble," said he. " I will see 
that the order is issued." 

And in a few days her husband was remanded to 
his regiment. I am sorry to add that, not long 
after, he was killed at the battle of Gettysburg, thus 
sealing with his blood her pledge that he should be 
faithful to his duty. 

Attorney-General Bates, who was a Virginian by 
birth and had many relatives in that State, one day 
heard that a young Virginian, the son of one of his 
old friends, had been captured across the Potomac, 
was a prisoner of war, and was not in good health. 
Knowing the boy's father to be in his heart a Union 
man, Mr. Bates conceived the idea of having the son 
paroled and sent home, of course under promise not 
to return to the army. He went to see the President 
and said : 

" I have a personal favor to ask. I want you to 
give me a prisoner." 

And he told him of the case. The President said : 

" Bates, I have an almost parallel case. The son 
of an old friend of mine in Illinois ran off and entered 
the rebel army. The young fool has been captured, 
is a prisoner of war, and his old broken-hearted father 
has asked me to send him home, promising of course 
to keep him there. I have not seen my way clear to 



BY T! TAIN J. COFFEY. 245 

do it, but If you and I unite our influence with this 
administration I believe we can manage it together 
and make two loyal fathers happy. Let us make 
them our prisoners." 

And he did so. 

I often heard the Attorney-General say on his 
return from important Cabinet meetings that the 
more he saw of Mr. Lincoln the more was he im- 
pressed with the clearness and vigor of his intellect 
and the breadth and sagacity of his views, and he 
would add : 

" He is beyond question the master-mind of the 
Cabinet." 

No man could talk with him on public questions 
without being struck with the singular lucidity of 
his mind and the rapidity with which he fastened on 
the essential point. 

A day or two after the news came of the stopping 
of the English steamer Trent by Admiral Wilkes, 
and the forcible capture of Mason and Slidell, the 
President walked into the Attorney-General's room, 
and as he seated himself said to that officer : 

" I am not getting much sleep out of that exploit 
of Wilkes', and I suppose we must look up the law 
of the case. I am not much of a prize lawyer, but it 
seems to me pretty clear that if Wilkes saw fit to 
make that capture on the high seas he had no right 
to turn his quarter-deck into a prize court." 



246 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

His mind quickly saw the point which, first of all, 
gave the act its gravest and most indefensible aspect. 

The memory of Abraham Lincoln is and always 
will be precious to the American people, and the 
better his character and conduct are understood the 
brighter will he shine among those names that the 
world will not willingly let die. 

TITIAN J. COFFEY. 



liilliliiil 



illlilM^^^^^^^^^ 



'II 11 










XIII. 

Henry Ward Beecher. 

MY acquaintance with Lincoln could hardly be 
called an acquaintance. I was rather an 
observer. I followed him as I did every public 
character during the antislavery conflict. The first 
thing that really awakened my interest in him was 
his speeches parallel with Douglas in Illinois, and 
indeed it was that manifestation of ability that 
secured his nomination to the Presidency. It was 
a matter of great importance that the new Presiden- 
tial election should have another candidate than 
Fremont, and Lincoln's speech at the Cooper Union, 
after his controversy with Douglas, settled it. 

Seward expected the nomination, but overhopeful 
nature would, I think, have gone far to damage the 
whole country if he had been President, and the 
nomination of Lincoln was, to begin with, the reve- 
lation of the hand of God. 

He was, in the most significant way, a man that 
embodied all the best qualities of unspoiled, middle- 
class men. He had the homely common sense ; he 
had honesty with sagacity ; and he had sympathetic 



248 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

nature that prepared him to accept any stormy 
times. The colored people were the helpless wards ; 
the Southern people, our fellow-citizens. 

The weakness of human nature is such that when 
a man is born he is helpless ; and he can never stand 
up against the public sentiment of the age in which 
he lives. Lincoln was able to deal with all classes 
of men, from his very nature. When he first went 
to Washington, the general opinion was that he was 
an honest man but lacked in sagacity ; but a friend 
told me he was the best judge of men in the country. 

Thus far in a general way. 

I was editor of the Independent in 186 1-2, and of 
course my duty compelled me to keep the run of 
things, and know what was going on behind and 
outside. 

The first visit I ever made to Washington was be- 
fore the war. The organization of the church was 
controlled by the South, and I walked the streets 
and was regarded by the people there as a sort of 
dangerous animal. They stood and looked at me as 
they would a bull-dog or bear. I did not go to 
Washington again until 1862. 

In 1862, the great delay, the want of any success, 
the masterly inactivity of our leading generals, roused 
my indignation, and I wrote a series of editorials ad- 
dressed to the President (three or four), and as near 
as I can recollect they were in the nature of a mow- 



BY HENRY WARD BEECHER. 249 

ing machine — they cut at every revolution — and I 
was told one day that the President had received 
them and read them through with very serious coun- 
tenance, and that his only criticism was : " Is thy 
servant a dog ? " They bore down on him very 
hard. 

I went to England in 1863, not directly or in- 
directly by request of Mr. Lincoln or of Mr. Sew- 
ard, and was opposed to speaking there until I was 
dragged into it by things over there. 

On my return from England I fell in with Stan- 
ton, and I consider him to be head and shoulders 
above all others in that conflict. 

There was some talk, early in 1864. of a sort of 
compromise with the South. Blair had told the 
President that he was satisfied if he could be put 
in communication with some of the leading men 
of the South in some way or other, that some 
benefit would accrue. Lincoln had sent a delega- 
tion to meet Alexander Stephens, and that was all 
the North knew. We were all very much excited 
over that. The war lasted so long, and I was afraid 
Lincoln would be so anxious for peace, and I was 
afraid he would accept something that would be of 
advantage to the South, so I went to Washington 
and called upon him. We were alone in his receiv- 
ing-room. His hair was " every way for Sunday." 
It looked as though it was an abandoned stubble 



2ro REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

field. He had on slippers, and his vest was what 
was called "going free." He looked wearied, and 
when he sat down in a chair, looked as though every 
limb wanted to drop off his body. And I said to 
him, " Mr. Lincoln, I come to you to know whether 
the public interest will permit you to explain to me 
what this Southern commission means ? I am in a 
position as editor, not wont to step in the dark." 
Well, he listened very patiently, and looked up to 
the ceiling for a few moments, and said : " Well, I 
am almost of a mind to show you all the docu- 
ments." 

'• Well, Mr. Lincoln, I should like to see them if 
it is proper." He went to his little secretary, and 
came out and handed me a little card as long as my 
finger and an inch wide, and on that was written — 

"You will pass the bearer through the lines" (or 

something to that effect). 

"A. LINCOLN." 

" There," he said, " is all there is of it. Now 
Blair thinks something can be done, but I don't, but 
I have no objection to have him try his hand. He 
has no authority whatever but to go and see what 
he can do." 

"Well," said I, "you have lifted a great burden 
off my mind." 

Well, that being all safely over, we talked a little 



BY HENRY IVARD BEE CHER. 25 I 

about Other things, and some one came in and said 
to him that a deputation had just arrived and wanted 
to see him. 

"Well," said he, "you come along with me." I 
said I did not want to make any remarks, but he 
said, "Come along." 

We went to a balcony window, and Mr. Lincoln 
made a few courteous remarks, and then he said, 
"Now Mr. Beecher will talk to you." I do not 
remember what I said — a few words. 

I do not know that I ever met him after that. 

John Dufrees was Public Printer, and was my old 
friend and chum. He was intimately acquainted 
with him, and he gave me a good many things which 
would come more properly from him than me. 

When Mrs. Stowe called to see Lincoln towards 
the close of the war, she says that she spoke of the 
great relief he must feel at the prospect of an early 
close of the war and the establishment of peace. 
And he said, in a sad way, " No, Mrs. Stowe, I shall 
never live to see peace ; this war is killing me ; " 
and he had a presentiment that he would not live 
long, that he had put his whole life into the war, and 
that when it was over he would then collapse. 

Nobody will ever understand Lincoln who is not 
acquainted with Western character and habit of 
thirty or forty years ago. 

I have heard of these stories from Stanton. Stan- 



252 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOIN 

ton was as tender as a woman — he was as tender as 
a lover. I had great admiration for him. 

I came up Wall Street one day and met a friend 
who said : " I just came back from Washington. 
Stanton is breaking down ; he won't hold out much 
longer." 

Well, it just struck me all in a heap. I walked 
into one of those offices in Wall Street and said, 
"Will you allow me pen and ink?" and wrote to 
him just what I had heard — that he was sick and 
broken down and desponding. I wrote that he need 
not despond, that the country was saved, and, if he 
did not do another thing, he had done enough. I 
sent the letter, and in the course of a few days I got 
back a letter, and if it had been a woman writine in 
answer to a proposal it could not have been more 
tender. And when I went to Washington he treated 
me with oreat tenderness, as if I had been his son. 

When Johnson had come to the Presidency, and 
Stanton and every one was anxious that he should 
be kept in Northern influence, I went down to 
Washington to preach the funeral sermon. The 
President was there, and he asked me to call and see 
him — that he would be happy to see me. 

Stanton said, "Go." I afterward went to see the 
President. I returned to Stanton's and went into 
his study, and he got a box of cigars, and I thought 
that if I did not smoke he would not like it. and I 



BV HENRY WARD BEECH ER. 253 

took a smoke, although it made me sick — puffing 
occasionally — and when he threw away his, I did 
mine. 

Stanton, evidently, got rest from his great cares 
through literature; but Lincoln, from the humorists. 
I understood them both perfectly. Stanton had 
poetry for his relaxation. Everybody must have 
somewhere to blow off. 

HENRY WARD BEECHER. 



XIV. 

William D. Kelley. 



THE object of this series of sketches of Abraham 
Lincoln by men who were intimately acquainted 
with him is, as I understand it, to perpetuate the 
memory of illustrative facts of his current life, and 
thus provide materials for future biography. 

Remembering that it is not for " impressions of 
his character, but for incidents illustrative thereof," 
that I have been asked, I find a fitting prelude to 
my reminiscences in a rapid allusion to our first 
meeting. It took place in the reception-room and 
library of Mr. Lincoln's Springfield home on the 
evening of the day succeeding his nomination for the 
Presidency by the Republican Convention. It so 
happened that, though we had never met, I was not 
entirely unknown to him. He had heard of the so- 
norous voice of the Pennsylvania delegate, who, fa- 
voring the nomination of Lincoln or Wade, and who, 
having been informed of the details of an arrange- 
ment by which the immense audience that would 
throng the wigwam on the evening preceding the 



256 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

formal opening of the Convention should be ad- 
dressed by no advocate of any other candidate than 
Mr. Seward, had deliberately undertaken to defeat 
the scheme by talking against time, till the trains 
that were to carry his auditors to their homes be- 
yond the city should be ready for the last departure 
of that date ; and who, in defiance of oft-repeated calls 
for Hon. James W. Nye, who was to dedicate the 
entire evening to his friend Seward, held the platform 
till midnight approached and the twelve thousand 
early listeners had palpably dwindled to less than 
one thousand. It is, however, due to Mr. Lincoln 
to say that he made no reference to this incident on 
that evening, and that it was not until I had come 
to be an habitue of the Executive Chamber that I 
heard him recount the story of the wigwam meet- 
ing as it had come to him. Graver matters now 
engaged him. The president of the Convention, 
and the chairman of each delegation, or a substitute 
for him, in which latter capacity I served, had called 
to notify him of his nomination, and to present to 
him the letter which had been prepared, and which 
would inform him of the nomination, together with 
the platform, resolutions and sentiments which the 
Convention had adopted. 

It was a beautiful evening In May. The train 
bearing the Committee, and a number of distin- 
guished gentlemen who accompanied them, arrived at 



BY WILLIAM D. KELLEY. 2^7 

Springfield shortly before sunset, and, after a couple 
of hours devoted to refreshment and such rest as 
might be found in the midst of so excited a people, 
the delegates repaired to Mr. Lincoln's home for the 
purpose of discharging the duty with which they had 
been intrusted. Having entered the room desio-- 
nated, the members of the Committee, and the dis- 
tinguished men by whom they were accompanied, 
ranged themselves around three sides of the room. 
Among them were many men of national importance, 
including Hon. George Ashman, who had presided 
over the Convention and had been the life-long 
friend of Daniel Webster. Through a vista of more 
than a quarter of a century, I vividly recall the 
appearance of Governor Morgan of New York, and 
of the venerable Francis P. Blair, who had so lono- 
edited the Globe, the organ of Jackson's adminis- 
tration ; of Hon. Gideon Welles of Connecticut, 
who was to serve with honor throughout the war as 
Secretary of the Navy; of Hon. David K. Cartter, of 
Congressional fame, subsequently in the diplomatic 
service of the government, and now Chief Justice of 
the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia ; of 
John A. Andrew, who is immortal in history as the 
great War Governor of Massachusetts ; and of Will- 
iam M. Evarts, who, having in the name of New 
York nominated William H. Seward to the Conven- 
tion, at the appropriate moment after Mr. Lincoln's 



258 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

nomination by a majority of the Convention, moved 
that the nomination be made unanimous, and many 
others no less worthy of special designation. 

Mr. Lincoln assumed his position in the back part 
of the room, and Mr. Ashman, advancing a few paces, 
briefly announced the purpose of our visit and 
delivered the letter containing the platform, etc. 
While Mr. Ashman spoke, Mr. Lincoln's form and 
features seemed to be immovable ; his frame was 
slightly bent, and his face downcast and absolutely 
void of expression. It was evident that the voice 
which addressed him was receiving his exclusive 
attention. He had no eye nor ear for any other 
object, and as I contemplated his tall, spare figure, I 
remembered that of Henry Clay, to whom I noticed 
a more than passing resemblance ; and that of Gen- 
eral Jackson, as I had seen him in 1832, forced itself 
upon my memory. It was not, however, until the 
conclusion of Mr. Ashman's few sentences, that I 
beheld the being, upon whose rough casket I had 
been o-azinof. The bowed head rose as by an elec- 
trie movement, the broad mouth, which had been so 
firmly drawn together, opened with a genial smile, 
and the eyes, that had been shaded, beamed with 
intelligence and the exhilaration of the occasion. 
The few words, in which fitting response to Mr. 
Ashman's address was made, flowed in a pleasant 
voice, and, though without marked emphasis, each 



BY WILLIAM D. KELLEY. 



259 



syllable was uttered with perfect clearness. As In 
conclusion he said, " Now I will not longer defer the 
pleasure of taking you, and each of you, by the 
hand," Mr. Lincoln joined Mr. Ashman, and ap- 
proached the Hon. E. D. Morgan, who was Gover- 
nor of the Empire State, Chairman of the Republi- 
can Executive Committee, and the most commanding 
figure of the visiting party. Accident had placed 
me at the left hand of the Governor, who was 
not only not gifted as a conversationalist but was 
eminently taciturn, and made no audible response 
to the cordial welcome with which he had been 
greeted. Mr. Lincoln, as if determined to elicit a 
colloquy, said, " Pray, Governor, how tall may you 
be?" " Nearly six feet three," said the brawny and 
distinguished man, who relapsed into silence, and 
was thus likely to embarrass his eager interlocutor. 
But, interposing, I somewhat boisterously exclaimed : 
"And pray, Mr. Lincoln, how tall may you be?" 
" Six feet four" said he. At hearing which I bowed 
profoundly, saying : " Pennsylvania bows humbly 
before New York, but still more humbly before 
Illinois. Mr. Lincoln, is it not curious that I, 
who for the last twelve years have yearned for a 
president to whom I might look up, should have 
found one here in a State where so many people 
believe they grow nothing but 'Little Giants?' 
(The popular sobriquet of Stephen A. Douglas.) 



26o KEMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

A peal of laughter greeted this interjection. The 
ice was broken. A free flow of chat and chaff per- 
vaded the room, and before the company dispersed, 
every guest had an opportunity for a pleasant ex- 
change of words with the whilom rail-splitter, Abra- 
ham Lincoln. 

II. 

Our next interview occurred early in August. 
Frank P. Blair, Jr., had accepted the Republican 
nomination for Congress in one of the St. Louis 
districts, and in pursuance of a promise given his 
friends at Chicago, I opened a campaign in that city 
in his behalf in the latter part of July. Returning 
thence, I fulfilled a promise exacted from me by Mr. 
Lincoln before we parted in May, and passed a day 
at Springfield. Our intercourse during this visit 
convinced me that a desire to know all that could 
be learned on any subject that challenged his inves- 
tigation was the dominant element of his intellect- 
ual character and the source of his leadership among 
men. His knowledge, chiefly acquired after his 
nomination, of the men who held or aspired to hold 
leadership in Pennsylvania, and in many cases of 
men whose influence was limited to minor subdivi- 
sions of the State, astonished me. Nor was he 
ignorant of the fact that the opposition to Democ- 
racy in Pennsylvania was not, as in Illinois, through- 



BY WILLIAM D. KELLEY. 26 1 

out New England, in the north-west generally, a co- 
herent body. He knew, too, that the questions, the 
subtlety and power of which had divided the vote of 
the opposition to the Democracy in Pennsylvania, 
and by losing the State to F"remont had made the 
election of Buchanan possible in 1856, had not been 
definitely settled ; and that that opposition even now 
was a compromise or armed neutrality between the 
Republican and the American parties, and was known 
in and about Philadelphia as the People's Party. 
This was the title by which the delegates from Phila- 
delphia to the Chicago Convention had been known. 
Mr. Lincoln felt that he was more than the candi- 
date for the first office in the gift of the American 
people, and there seemed to him to be something 
repugnant in the discussion of that selfish aspect of 
his position. He evidently thought of himself as 
the accepted representative of Republican principles, 
and felt that he had been charged with the duty 
of securing, if possible, their triumph, and of giving 
his countrymen whatever blessings these principles 
might be capable of producing. He knew that the 
smoldering conflict of sentiment might be fanned 
into flame if discontent should be widely generated 
by local nominations or other causes affecting leg- 
islative, senatorial, or Congressional districts. He 
therefore attached no value to the mere knowledge 
of the names or geographical relations of men. To 



262 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

name a man whose affiliations he did not know, was 
Hke any other fact in nature which, by reason of his 
lack of knowledge of its relations, seemed to exist in • 
isolation ; what he wanted to know was the relations 
of men to opinion, to men of influence, and to organ- 
izations social or political. Earnest contests in be- 
half of gentlemen for positions in his Cabinet were 
already in motion. How far might this question 
affect the harmony of the party, and the popular 
vote of the State ? " You told our people here at 
the State-house," said he, " on the night you visited 
me with the committee from the Convention, that I 
would carry your State by a larger majority even 
than it had given 'Old Hickory,' which was the 
largest it had ever recorded, but now and again a 
communication comes along which gives me cause 
to think your estimate may have been much too 
sanguine. I do not incline to that opinion at pres- 
ent, and our conversation has satisfied me that you 
form a very accurate appreciation of the things of 
which you speak. I have, however, arranged to 
consider these questions through the aid of two old 
friends whose judgment I can trust as I cannot that 
of any recent acquaintance, and who are in no way 
involved in any of your local dissensions. They will 
come to you very shortly, and I wish you to bring 
about them as many men of local influence of all 
shades of Republican opinion as you can, present- 



BY WILLIAM D. KELLEY. 263 

ing them as far as you can to individuals or small 
groups, and in such a manner as to enable my two 
friends — each of whom is a Judge Davis — to reach 
conclusions after what they shall regard as satisfac- 
tory investigation. They are known in Illinois as ' big 
Judge Davis' and ' little Judge Davis ; ' but in worth 
and character they are both large men, and I want 
them to traverse Pennsylvania to the extent, at least, 
of all the disaffected districts." Sickness prevented 
the "little Judge" from coming, and the note which 
brought the "big Judge" to my office some weeks 
later was my introduction to the Hon. David Davis, 
so well known to the country by his career as an 
independent Senator and a learned and conscientious 
Judge of the Supreme Court of the United States. 



III. 

An apparently unrelated or isolated person or fact 
would have been a perpetual source of annoyance to 
Mr. Lincoln. Why did this occur ? Why is that 
so? were questions he propounded not only in con- 
nection with matters of grave responsibility, but in 
relation to the commonest affairs of life. There were 
persons who knew of Mr. Lincoln but as a story- 
teller, and believed him to be devoted to intercourse 
with men who enjoyed hearing and knew how to 
tell mirth-provoking stories. 



254 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Of this class was my friend, the late John McDon- 
ough, a celebrated actor, who was an intensely par- 
tisan Democrat, and had accepted the theory that 
Mr. Lincoln was a mere buffoon, whose official du- 
ties were performed by his Cabinet. I may without 
injustice to the memory of a valued friend make 
this statement, for after the incident to which I am 
about to refer he made the utmost atonement for 
any injustice he might have done Mr. Lincoln. Mr. 
McDonough was to play an engagement at the Na- 
tional Theatre, in which he was to appear as " Mrs. 
Pluto," in an extravaganza entitled The Seven Sis- 
ters. After much persuasion, he consented to go 
with me to the White House the evening preceding 
the opening of his engagement. Pursuant to prom- 
ise he called at my rooms, and found with me Rev. 
Benj. R. Miller, a devoted Wesleyan, and chaplain 
of the 119th Pennsylvania Volunteers, who had pror 
posed to devote the first evening of a brief furlough 
to a conference with his personal friend and Con- 
gressional representative. 

The night was terribly stormy, but in spite of 
wind and rain I proposed an early start for the 
White House, the more certainly to secure the in- 
terview I hoped to bring about. Thanks to the con- 
dition of the weather, we found the President alone ; 
and disclaiming any desire for employment or pat- 
ronage of any kind, I said we might, however, vex 



BY WILLIAM D. KELLEY. 265 

him with some problems, as we represented the stage, 
the pulpit, and the forum, and introduced my friends 
as "Parson Miller" and "Mrs. Pluto." After a 
playful remark or two about the possibility of dis- 
cord in a household that embraced "Mrs. Pluto" 
and an orthodox clergyman, the President turned to 
the chaplain and created not a little surprise on the 
part of my friends, showing that it was not neces- 
sary for him to inquire from what corps a represent- 
ative of the 119th Pennsylvania came, by asking 
about the condition of certain officers and bodies of 
troops of whom the chaplain of a regiment in their 
division would probably be able to tell him. 

Having thus for the present disposed of the chap- 
lain, Mr. Lincoln turned to Mr. McDonough, who 
seemed lost in contemplation of the grave and dig- 
nified man who, despite the cares of his great office, 
was so easy in social intercourse, and said, " I am 
very glad to meet you, Mr. McDonough, and am 
grateful to Kelley for bringing you in so early, for I 
want you to tell me something about Shakespeare's 
plays as they are constructed for the stage. You 
can imagine that I do not get much time to study 
such matters, but I recently had a couple of talks 
with Hackett — Baron Hackett, as they call him — 
who is famous as Jack Falstaff, but from whom I 
elicited few satisfactory replies, though I probed him 
with a good many questions." 



266 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Mr. McDonough avowed his willingness to give 
the President any information in his possession, but 
protested that he feared he would not succeed 
where his friend Hackett had failed. " Well, I 
don't know," said the President, " for Hackett's lack 
of. information impressed me with a doubt as to 
whether he had ever studied Shakespeare's text, or 
had not been content with the acting edition of his 
plays." He arose, went to a shelf not far from his 
table, and having taken down a well-thumbed vol- 
ume of the Plays of Shakespeare, resumed his seat, 
arranged his glasses, and having turned to Henry 
VI. and read with fine discrimination an extended 
passage, said, " Mr. McDonough, can you tell me 
why those lines are omitted from the acting play? 
There is nothing I have read in Shakespeare, cer- 
tainly nothing in Henry VI. or the Me^^ry Wives of 
Windsor, that surpasses i^s wit and humor." The 
actor suggested the breadth of its humor as the only 
reason he could assign for its omission, but thought- 
fully added that it was possible that if the lines were 
spoken they would require the rendition of another 
or other passages which might be objectionable. 

"Your last suggestion," said Mr. Lincoln, "carries 
with it greater weight than anything Mr. Hackett 
suggested, but the first is no reason at all ;" and after 
reading another passage, he said, " This is not with- 
held, and where it passes current there can be no 



BY WILLIAM D. KELLEY. 267 

reason for withholding the other." But, as if feeling 
the impropriety of preferring the player to the par- 
son, he turned to the chaplain and said: "From your 
calling it is probable you do not know that the act- 
ing plays which people crowd to hear are not always 
those planned by their reputed authors. Thus, take 
the stage edition of Richard III. It opens with a 
passage from Henry VI., after which come portions 
of Richard HI, then another scene from Heji7y VI, 
and the finest soliloquy in the play, if we may judge 
from the many quotations it furnishes, and the fre- 
quency with which it is heard in amateur exhibitions, 
was never seen by Shakespeare, but was written, was 
it not, Mr. McDonough, after his death, by Colley 
Gibber?" 

Having disposed, for the present, of questions re- 
lating to the stage editions of the plays, he recurred 
to his standard copy, and, to the evident surprise of 
Mr. McDonough, read or repeated from memory ex- 
tracts from several of the plays, some of which em- 
braced a number of lines. 

It must not be supposed that Mr. Lincoln's poeti- 
cal studies had been confined to his plays. He 
interspersed his remarks with extracts striking 
from their similarity to, or contrast with, something 
of Shakespeare's, from Byron, Rogers, Campbell, 
Moore, and other English poets. 

The time had come for our departure, and Mr. 



268 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

McDonough had thanked the President warmly for 
the pleasure he had afforded him, and we were about 
to take our leave, when Mr. Lincoln said : " But 
there is much genuine poetry floating about anony- 
mously. There is one such poem that is my almost 
constant companion ; indeed, I may say it is continu- 
ally present with me, as it crosses my mind whenever 
I have relief from anxiety. It opens thus" — and he 
proceeded to recite the opening and several suc- 
ceeding stanzas, though he did not repeat the entire 
poem. My readers will, I am sure, thank me for 
inserting it in full, as it was noted from his lips by 
Mr. F. B. Carpenter during his stay at the White 
House, and appears in his charming volume, The 
Inner Life of Abraham Lincoln. 

Oh ! why should the spirit of mortal be proud ? 
Like a swift-fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud, 
A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave, 
He passes from life to his rest in the grave. 

The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade, 
Be scattered around and together be laid ; 
And the young and the old, and the low and the high, 
Shall molder to dust, and together shall lie. 

The infant, the mother attended and loved ; 
The mother, that infant's affection who proved ; 
The husband, that mother and infant who blessed — 
Each, all are away in their dwellings of rest. 



BY WILLIAM D. KELLEY. 269 

The hand of the king that the scepter hath borne, 
The brow of the priest that the miter hath worn, 
The eye of the sage and the heart of the brave, 
Are hidden and lost in the depths of the grave. 

The peasant, whose lot was to sow and to reap, 
The herdsman, who climbed with his goats up the steep, 
The beggar, who wandered in search of his bread. 
Have faded away like the grass that we tread. 

So the multitude goes, like the flower or weed, 
That withers away to let others succeed ; 
So the multitude comes — even those we behold — 
To repeat every tale that has often been told. 

For we are the same our fathers have been ; 
We see the same sights our fathers have seen ; 
We drink the same stream, we view the same sun. 
And run the same course our fathers have run. 

The thoughts we are thinking, our fathers would think : 
From the death we are shrinking, our fathers would shrink ; 
To the life we are clinging, they also would cling ; 
But it speeds from us all like a bird on the wing. 

They loved — but the story we cannot unfold ; 
They scorned — but the heart of the haughty is cold ; 
They grieved — but no wail from their slumber will come ; 
They joyed — but the tongue of their gladness is done. 

They died — ay, they died — we things, that are now, 
That walk on the turf that lies o'er their brow, 
And make in their dwellings a transient abode. 
Meet the things that they met on their pilgrimage road. 



270 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Yea, hope and despondency, pleasure and pain, 
Are mingled together in sunshine and rain ; 
And the smile and the tear, the song and the dirge, 
Still follow each other like surge upon surge. 

'Tis the wink of an eye, 'tis the draught of a breath — 
From the blossom of health to the paleness of death, 
From gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud ; 
Oh ! why should the spirit of mortal be proud ? 

It was now past eleven o'clock. We had been 
with him more than four hours, and when I ex- 
pressed regret for the thoughtlessness which had de- 
tained him so long, he responded : " Kelley, I assure 
your friends that in bringing them here this evening 
you have given me the benefit of a long holiday. 
I have not enjoyed such a season of literary recrea- 
tion since I entered the White House, and I feel 
that a long and pleasant interval has passed since I 
closed my routine work this afternoon. Before you 
go I want to make a request of each of you, and 
exact a promise that you will grant it if it shall 
ever happen that you can do so. The little poem 
I just now brought to your notice is truly anony- 
mous. Its author has been greatly my benefactor, 
and I would be glad to name him when I speak of 
his poem ; and the request I make of you is, that 
should you ever learn his name and anything of his 
story you will send it to me, that I may treasure it 
as a memorial of a dear friend." 



BY IVJLLIAM D. KELLEY. 2/1 



IV. 



The result of the October election of 1862 was 
unsatisfactory to the Republicans of Pennsylvania, 
and they ascribed the reverses which had overtaken 
the party to the President's retention of McClellan 
as General-in-Chief, after he had proven himself un- 
willing or incompetent to conduct an aggressive 
campaign against the Confederate army. 

On the morning of the third day after that elec- 
tion I participated in a memorable interview with 
the President. My district had been strongly con- 
servative, and my election in i860 was by a plurality 
and not by a majority of the voters, the opposition 
having divided their suffrages between a Democrat 
and a nominee of the Bell and Everett party. 
Knowing for years, as I had, McClellan's father and 
uncle, who ranked high among Philadelphia's dis- 
tinguished surgeons and physicians, and recognizing 
in his promotion a compliment to my city, of which 
he was a native, I greeted with enthusiasm his ap- 
pointment to a command which brought him to 
Washington, and took the earliest fitting opportu- 
nity to present my congratulations in person. That 
was late in July, but before the ist of January I 
had taken my place with those who denounced his 
course in selecting his intimate associates from the 
ranks of those who were most hostile to the ad- 



272 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

ministration that had placed him in command of the 
army which was charged with the duty of conquer- 
ing embattled rebellion, and in wasting the entire 
summer and autumn in inaction. My revised esti- 
mate of his fitness for supreme command was ex- 
pressed without reserve at the time of his greatest 
popularity. This independence of judgment and 
speech cost me the sympathy of many constituents 
from whom I had received most active support, and 
I was regarded, if I may be permitted to use a bit 
of Congressional slang, as "a yearling" — a man who 
had come to Congress to serve once and never re- 
turn. 

Thus it came about that when on the morning of 
which I have spoken I presented myself to the Pres- 
icjent as his first visitor, he advanced with extended 
hand to greet me, exclaiming, " Kelley, you know 
how sincerely I congratulate you. Come, sit down 
and tell me how it is that you, for whose election 
nobody seemed to hope, are returned with a good 
majority at your back, while so many of our friends, 
about whom there was no doubt, have been badly 
beaten." 

Admittinof that I would have been beaten had the 
election occurred six months earlier, I said that my 
triumph was due to my loyalty to him and his ad- 
ministration, coupled with my known independence 
of both in demanding the substitution of a fighting 



B V WILLIAM D. KELLE Y. 2 J 2, 

general for McClellan. Without pausing for a re- 
ply, I continued : It is the desire to secure this 
change that has brought me here at such an early 
hour this morning. I am, as you know, not a sol- 
dier, and have rendered no military service, yet it 
happens that, as one of a squad of emergency men, 
I was in charge of the spare guns and sick horses of 
a battery of regular artillery in a camp between 
Hagerstown and Sharpsburg, and heard the fire of 
musketry that opened the battle of Antietam in the 
gray dawn of the morning; that by a detail from Dr. 
Smith, the Surgeon-General of Pennsylvania, I had 
been the bearer of a communication to General Rey- 
nolds touching the reserves, or "Home Guard" 
of Philadelphia, who, having volunteered as " emer- 
gency men " for duty within our State, had, without 
rest, drill, or other preparation for field duty, been 
ordered to the front immediately on their arrival at 
the State line ; and that I could therefore tell him, 
from personal observation, that the sacrifices of that 
long day's fighting had been surrendered by McClel- 
lan, who, while it was not only daylight, but while 
the sun was still high and Fitz-John Porter's corps 
was in reserve, and other troops were comparatively 
fresh, had silenced his guns, and permitted Lee to 
withdraw his forces from a cul-de-sac, in which they 
were practically imprisoned. At this moment we 
were interrupted by a messenger with a card, which 

IS 



274 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

proved to be that of my colleague from the Gettys- 
burg district, Hon. Edward McPherson. He had 
just been beaten in what had been regarded as a 
certain district. With the most sympathetic man- 
ner, Mr. Lincoln, who had advanced toward the 
threshold to meet him, asked " how he accounted for 
so unhappy and so unexpected a result in his dis- 
trict." I had not conversed with Mr. McPherson 
on the subject, but knew that his friends were out- 
spoken in charging the loss of the district to the 
President ; and when, with the gentleness of his 
nature, he was suggesting specious causes for the 
sweeping reverse, I interrupted him by saying : 
•* Mr. President, my colleague is not treating you 
frankly ; his friends hold you responsible for his de- 
feat." " If that be true," rejoined the President, " I 
thank you for the suggestion ;" and turning to Mc- 
Pherson, said : " Tell me frankly what cost us your 
district. If ever there was an occasion when a man 
should speak with perfect candor to another it is 
now, when I apply to you for information that may 
guide my course in grave national matters." "Well, 
Mr. President," said McPherson, " I will tell you 
frankly what our friends say. They charge the de- 
feat to the general tardiness in military movements, 
which result, as they believe, from McClellan's un- 
fitness for command. The enforcement of the draft 
occurred during the campaign, and of course our 



BY WILLIAM D. KELLEY. 275 

political enemies made a great deal of capital out 
of it ; but, in my judgment, not enough to change the 
complexion of the district. But the persistent re- 
fusal of McClellan and his engineers to protect our 
borders from invasion, by the construction of works 
to command the fords of the Potomac, had a very 
positive effect ; for, as a result of the neglect of this 
duty, Stuart, with his cavalry, raided through my dis- 
trict on the Friday and Saturday before the election ; 
paroled sick and wounded Union soldiers whom he 
found in hospital at Chambersburg ; burnt the rail- 
road station, machine shops, and several trains of 
loaded cars, and destroyed thousands of muskets and 
large quantities of army clothing." 

The President was not permitted to reply to these 
suggestions, for the main door on the broad landing 
at the head of the stairs opened without knock or 
other premonition, and the sturdy form of Hon. J. 
K. Moorhead, who represented the Pittsburg district, 
advanced toward the President, who met him with 
extended hand, saying, " And what word do you 
bring, Moorhead ; you, at any rate, were not de- 
feated?" "No," exclaimed Moorhead, in a voice at 
a high pitch and tremulous with nervous excitement — 
"no, Mr. President, but I am sorry to say it was not 
your fault that we were not all beaten ; " and con- 
tinuing in the same nervous manner he proceeded to 
the performance of a duty which, knowing the gentle- 



2/0 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

ness of Mr. Lincoln's nature, he felt to be a most un- 
gracious one, and said : "■ Mr. President, I came as 
far as Harrisburg yesterday, and passed the evening 
with a number of the best and most influential men 
of our State, including some of those who have been 
your most earnest supporters, and they charged me 
to tell you that when one of them said, ' he would be 
glad to hear some morning that you had been found 
hanging from the post of a lamp at the door of the 
White House,' others approved the expression." 

The manner of the President changed. He was 
perfectly calm, and in a subdued voice said : " You 
need not be surprised to find that that suggestion has 
been executed any morning ; the violent preliminaries 
to such an event would not surprise me. I have done 
things lately that must be incomprehensible to the 
people, and which cannot now be explained." I met 
the President's admission of such a possibility with 
what, as I remember it at this distance of time, seems 
to me to have been a most indecorous display of 
earnestness. I could not retain my seat, and pacing 
the floor with quick and violent step, begged him to 
permit no other person to hear that he had ever 
entertained the thought of so fearful a possibility. I 
charged upon him a lack of self-appreciation, and said 
** he had but to assert his position by showing himself 
master of the military department, as he did of all 
other departments of the administration, to command 



BY WILLIAM D. KELLEY. 2/7 

a following in the Northern States such as even 
Andrew Jackson had never had; that he enjoyed a 
greater share of the personal affection of his fellow- 
citizens than any public man but Washington had 
done ; that within twenty-four hours of the time it 
should come to be known that he had put a soldier 
in McClellan's place, he would find that he could 
command the moral, social, and financial resources of 
the country as no other President had done ;" to all 
of which, after they had recovered from their surprise 
at my impulsive outburst, my colleagues assented. 
The kind-hearted President, who had not been of- 
fended by my manner, turned to me and said : " Kel- 
ley, if it were your duty to select a successor to Mc- 
Clellan, whom would you name ? " I evaded a direct 
reply, and said: "My advice to you, Mr. President, 
would be to make up your mind to change, and to let 
it be known that the loss of a great battle would be 
to the general the loss of his command, and to go on 
changing until you find the right man, though he 
prove to be a private with a marshal's baton in his 
knapsack." "Well," said he, "but you are talking 
about an immediate successor to McClellan, and I 
ask you whom you would name for his position if 
the duty were yours." "I think, sir," said 1, "my 
judgment would incline to Hooker, whose sobriquet 
of ' Fighting Joe ' would convey the impression to the 
impatient country that the change meant 'fight,' 



278 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

which the people would believe to be synonymous 
with ultimate and early success." " Would not Burn- 
side do better?" said the President. " I don't think 
so," said I ; " you know I have great respect for Burn- 
side, but he is not known to the country as an ag- 
gressive man, and in that respect I think Hooker 
would be better in the present conjunction of affairs." 
" I think," said he, " Burnside would be better, for he 
is the better housekeeper." With uncontrollable im- 
patience I exclaimed with an expletive, which I hope 
was pardoned elsewhere as freely as it was by the 
President, " You are not in search of a housekeeper 
or a hospital steward, but of a soldier who will fight, 
and fight to win." ** I am not so sure," said Mr. Lincoln, 
quietly, " that we are not in search of a housekeeper. 
I tell you, Kelley, the successful management of an 
army requires a good deal of faithful housekeeping. 
More fieht will be orot out of well-fed and well-cared- 
for soldiers and animals than can be got out of those 
that are required to make long marches with empty 
stomachs, and whose strength and cheerfulness are 
impaired by the failure to distribute proper rations at 
proper seasons." This was so true, so kindly, so 
thoroughly expressive of Mr. Lincoln's nature, that 
it commanded unqualified assent, and this part of the 
interview* closed with a renewal of the joint sug- 

* For supplement to this interview, see closing pages of Lincoln and 
Stanton, by Wm D. Kelley. G. P. Putnam's Sons. 



BY WILLIAM D. KELLEY. 2/9 

gestion that change should follow change until the 
rio-ht man had been found, and the expression of a 
hope that the first change would be promptly made. 
The President's thoughtful but evasive response to 
all of which was, " We shall see what we shall see." 
What we did see was that on the 7th of November 
Burnside relieved McClellan of his command. 

One evening when a few gentlemen, among whom 
was Mr. Seward, had met in the Executive Chamber 
without special business, and were talking of the past, 
the President said, '' Seward, you never heard, did 
you, how I earned my first dollar ? " " No," said Mr. 
Seward. " Well," replied he, " I was about eighteen 
years of age, and belonged, as you know, to what 
they call down South the ' Scrubs ; ' people who do 
not own land and slaves are nobody there, but we had 
succeeded in raising, chiefly by my labor, sufficient 
produce as I thought to justify me in taking it down 
the river to sell. After much persuasion I had got 
the consent of my mother to go, and had constructed 
a flat boat, large enough to take the few barrels of 
things we had gathered down to New Orleans. A 
steamer was going down the river. We have, you 
know, no wharves on the Western streams, and the 
custom was, if passengers were at any of the land- 
ings, they were to go out in a boat, the steamer stop- 
ping and taking them on board. I was contemplat- 
ing my new boat, and wondering whether I could 



28o REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

make it stronger or improve it in any part, when two 
men, with trunks, came down to the shore in car- 
riages, and looking at the different boats, singled out 
mine, and asked, ' Who owns this ? ' I answered, 
modestly, ' I do.' 'Will you,' said one of them, 'take 
us and our trunks out to the steamer ? ' ' Certainly,' 
said I. I was very glad to have the chance of earn- 
ing something, and supposed that each of them would 
give me a couple of bits. The trunks were put on 
my boat, the passengers seated themselves on them, 
and I sculled them out to the steamer. They got on 
board, and I lifted their trunks and put them on the 
deck. The steamer was about to put on steam again, 
when I called out, 'You have forgotten to pay me.' 
Each of them took from his pocket a silver half-dollar 
and threw it on the bottom of my boat. I could 
scarcely believe my eyes as I picked up the money. 
You may think it was a very little thing, and in these 
days it seems to me like a trifle, but it was a most 
important incident in my life. I could scarcely credit 
that I, the poor boy, had earned a dollar in less than 
a day ; that by honest work I had earned a dollar. 
The world seemed wider and fairer before me ; I was 
a more hopeful and thoughtful boy from that time." 



BY WILLIAM D. KELLEY. 251 



V. 



Early in June, 1862, in response to an invitation 
from Senator Wilmot, of Pennsylvania, to join him 
and Senator Wilson, of Massachusetts, in accom- 
panying a deputation of Pennsylvanians to the 
Executive Chamber, I repaired to the anteroom, 
where I found the Senators and a delegation of 
earnest people, who represented an independent 
religious organization which attached a higher de- 
gree of importance to the purity of life and unselfish 
conduct than to the acceptance of theological dog- 
mas, and who had been charged by the Yearly Meet- 
ing of their association to present a " minute " to 
the President on the subject of slavery and the duty 
of immediate emancipation. The minute had, in 
accordance with the usage of Friends, been carefully 
inscribed, and was in the hands of a member of the 
delegation who would read it distinctly. 

At the appointed time, a messenger notified the 
Senators that the President was ready to receive the 
party. We who knew Mr. Lincoln felt instinctively, 
on coming into his presence, that the visit was in- 
opportune. The air was full of evil rumors from 
the Peninsula, and the President had evidently 
passed a night of anxiety. He, however, gave the 
delegation a cordial, though brief, greeting. The 



282 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

guests, who were all strangers to the President, did 
not perceive, as others did, an unusual air of impa- 
tience in his manner, as he announced that he was 
ready to hear from the Friends. 

The delegation charged with the presentation of 
the minute advanced, and proceeded to read the 
contents of the attested document. 

The President did not seem to recognize the fact 
that in reading it he performed a ministerial func- 
tion, and apparently held him responsible for what 
the Yearly Meeting had prepared. I had not at- 
tempted to charge my memory with the substance 
of the minute. It, however, soon appeared that it 
had reminded the President that, while he was yet 
a citizen, he had said, " I believe that this govern- 
ment cannot permanently endure half slave and 
half free," and from this disjointed quotation had 
deduced a suggestion of his failure to perform his 
duty as he had then seen it. That he was sharply 
aggrieved by something that was said became ap- 
parent to every one. 

Havine finished it, the reader handed the scroll to 
the President, who, after a few unimportant remarks, 
straightened himself to his full height, and, with an 
asperity of manner of which he had not previously 
seemed to be capable, said : " It is true that on the 
17th of June, 1858, I said, ' I believe that this gov- 
ernment cannot permanently endure half slave and 



BY WILLIAM D. KELLEY. 283 

half free,' but I said it in connection with other 
things, from which it should not have been separated 
in an address discussing moral obligations ; for this 
is a case in which the repetition of half a truth, in 
connection with the remark just read, produces the 
effect of a whole falsehood. What I did say was : 
* If we could first know where we are and whither we 
are tending, we could better judge what to do and 
how to do it. We are now far into the fifth year 
since a policy was initiated with the avowed object 
and confident promise of putting an end to the slav- 
ery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, 
that agitation has not only not ceased, but has con- 
stantly augmented. In my opinion, it will not cease 
until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. 
"A house, divided against itself, cannot stand." I 
believe that this government cannot permanently 
endure half slave and half free. I do not expect the 
Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house 
to fall — but I do expect that it will cease to be 
divided. It will become all one thing or all the 
other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest 
the further spread of it, and place it where the public 
mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of 
ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it for- 
ward till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, 
old as well as new, North as well as South.' " "' 

* In this speech to the Republican State Convention at Springfield, 111., 



284 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

VI. 

A few days after the interview with the Progres- 
sive Friends, what the world calls a " Quaker 
Preacher" was presented to the President, and after 
some little general conversation, begged permission 
to detain him while she bore a brief testimony in 
behalf of the slave, to which, with an air of ill-sub- 
dued impatience, he replied, " I will hear the 
Friend." 

The testimony was ostensibly a plea in behalf of 
the slave, but it was evidently intended as an indi- 
rect appeal for the fuller recognition of woman in 
governmental matters ; for the speaker reminded 
the President that, after the children of Israel had 
been terribly wronged and oppressed for twenty 
years, and had cried out unto the Lord for deliver- 
ance, He had appointed Deborah, who was a proph- 
etess, and judged Israel at that time, to overthrow 
their oppressors and emancipate them, and that 
Deborah had gone up against Sisera, whom the 
Lord discomfited, with all his troops and all his 
hosts, so that Sisera leaped down off his chariot and 
fled away on his feet. Having elaborated this 
biblical example, the speaker assumed that the 
President was, as Deborah had been, the appointed 

June 17, 1858, many have found the original of Mr. Seward's famous irrepress- 
ible conflict speech at Rochester on the 25th of the following October. 



BV WILLIAM D. KELLEY. 285 

minister of the Lord, and proceeded to tell him that 
it was his duty to follow the example of Deborah, 
and forthwith abolish slavery, and establish freedom 
throughout the land, as the Lord had appointed him 
to do. 

"Has the Friend finished?" said the President, 
as she ceased to speak. Having received an affirm- 
ative answer, he said : " I have neither time nor dis- 
position to enter into discussion with the Friend, 
and end this occasion by suggesting for her consid- 
eration the question whether, if it be true that the 
Lord has appointed me to do the work she has indi- 
cated, it is not probable that He would have com- 
municated knowledge of the fact to me as well as to 

her." 

VII. 

Having called one morning a little earlier than 
usual, in the hope of having a confidential interview 
with the President, I found the field preoccupied ; 
and while I waited. Senator Wilson entered the 
chamber, having with him four Englishmen of ripe 
years and dignified bearing. 

The President had evidently had an early ap- 
pointment, and had not completed his toilet. He 
was in his slippers, and his pantaloons, when he 
crossed one knee over the other, disclosed the fact 
that he wore heavy blue stockings. As, in the 
etiquette of calls upon the Executive, Senators take 



286 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

precedence of members of the House, I found that 
my chance for anything Hke a private conversation 
was at an end ; but as I had breakfasted at the same 
table with the gentlemen whom the Senator was 
about to present, I could not avoid hearing their 
conversation, and I felt that I would be repaid by 
waiting for their proposed interview with the Presi- 
dent as others would have to do. 

It was an agreeable surprise to learn that the chief 
of the visiting party was Prof. Goldwin Smith, one 
of the firmest of our English friends. 

As the President rose to greet them, he was the 
very impersonation of easy dignity, notwithstanding 
the negligee of his costume ; and with the tact that 
never deserted him, he opened the conversation with 
an inquiry as to the health of John Bright, whom 
he said he regarded as the friend of our country, and 
of freedom everywhere. The visitors having been 
seated, the magnitude of recent battles was referred 
to by Prof. Smith as prelim.inary to the question, 
whether the enormous losses which were so fre- 
quently occurring would not so impair the industrial 
resources of the North as to seriously affect the 
prosperity of individual citizens, and consequently 
the revenues of the country. He justified the ques- 
tion by proceeding to recite the number of killed, 
wounded and missing reported after some of the 
great battles recently fought. 



BV WILLIAM D. KELLEY. 287 

There were two of Mr. Lincoln's devoted friends 
who Hved in dread of his Httle stories. Neither of 
them was orifted with humor, and both could under- 
stand his propositions, which were always distinct 
and clean cut, without such illustrations as those in 
which he so often indulged, and were chagrined 
whenever they were compelled to hear him resort to 
them in the presence of distinguished strangers or 
on grave occasions. They were Senator Wilson and 
Mr. Stanton, Secretary of War ; and, as Prof. Smith 
closed his statistical statement, the time came for 
the Massachusetts Senator to bite his lip, for the 
President, crossing his legs in such a manner as to 
show that his blue stockings were long as well as 
thick, said that in settling such matters we must re- 
sort to "darky" arithmetic. 

" To darky arithmetic ! " exclaimed the dignified 
representative of the learning and higher thought of 
Great Britain and her American Dominion, " I did 
not know, Mr. President, that you have two systems 
of arithmetic ? " 

" Oh, yes," said the President ; " I will illustrate 
that point by a little story : Two young contra- 
bands, as we have learned to call them, were seated 
together, when one said, 'Jim, do you know 'rith- 
metic? 

Meanwhile, Senator Wilson's right foot was play- 
ing a quick but quiet kind of devil's tattoo. Had 



288 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCGLiy 

he known a thousand stories he would not have told 
one of them to Prof. Smith and his grave-looking 
British friends ; and he was mortified that the Presi- 
dent, who in all essential things had few superiors 
in easy dignity of manner, should so inopportunely 
indulge in such frivolity. 

VIII. 

Unconscious of the Senator's annoyance, the 
President proceeded: "Jim answered, 'No; what is 
'rithmetic ? ' ' Well,' said the other, ' it's when you 
add up things. When you have one and one, and 
you put them together, they makes two. And 
when you substracts things. When if you have two 
things, and you takes one away, only one remains.' 
' Is dat 'rithmetic ? ' ' Yes.' ' Well, 'tain't true den ; 
it's no good.' Here a dispute arose, when Jim said : 
' Now, you s'pose three pigeons sit on that fence, 
and somebody shoot one of dem, do t'other two stay 
dar? I guess not, dey fhes away quicker'n odder 
feller falls,' and. Professor, trifling as the story seems. 
It illustrates the arithmetic you must use in estimat- 
ing the actual losses resulting from our great bat- 
tles. The statements you refer to give the killed, 
wounded and missing at the first roll-call after the 
battle, which always exhibits a greatly exaggerated 
total, especially in the column of missing." 

'' But, Mr. President," interjected the Professor, 



BV WILLIAM D. KELLEY. 289 

" is it not unfortunate that such should be the case ; 
for these original reports go everywhere, and doubt- 
less generally create the impression which led to my 
inquiry, whether you are not proceeding rapidly 
toward exhaustion ? " 

Admitting that it would be better, in some re- 
spects, if the statement of losses should be delayed, 
the President said he did not think it would com- 
pensate for possible evil consequences of such delay. 
The early reports of European battles did not 
furnish a standard by which to judge the accuracy of 
ours, or to form an opinion of the fidelity of our 
troops, by comparing the greater number of missing 
shown in our early reports. The Peninsula, in 
which the war was then raging, had, he said, been 
found to be a heavily wooded, swampy terra incog- 
nita, and the battles were fought by volunteers, 
most of whom were serving their first year, and not 
by veterans, such as made up the British and Con- 
tinental armies. Overtaken by darkness, in a 
swampy region penetrated by no roads save those 
made by the contending armies, new men, exhausted 
by long marches, loss of sleep, and long stretches of 
fighting, were hardly to blame for falling out of line 
and seeking a night's sleep to prepare them for 
returning to camp in the morning. The surprise to 
him had been, not the largeness but the smallness 

of the number of missing, when the final records of 
19 



290 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

losses in battle had been made up. And to the 
astonishment, not only of his interlocutor, but of all 
wlw were present, Mr. Lincoln proceeded to com- 
pare the first and final reports of the losses at 
several important battles, and to inquire with an air 
of quiet satisfaction whether the record was not one' 
which exhibited, on the part of volunteers, many of 
whom were little more than raw recruits, a devo- 
tion to the country of which every patriot might be 
proud. 

Having heard Mr. Lincoln answer the Professor 
satisfactorily, and vindicate his resort to darky 
arithmetic, I left without waiting to learn to what 
other topics his attention might be invited by his 
British guests. 

IX. 

It was a piece of rare good fortune that brought 
Goldwin Smith and his friends to my side, just after 
I had taken my usual seat at the dinner-table. The 
Professor was the most remote of the party, and the 
gentleman who sat next me had evidently parted 
from him before he left the Executive Chamber, 
and I could not help overhearing the conversation 
between them. 

'' Professor," said he, " can you give me the im- 
pression President Lincoln made upon you ? " 

" Yes," said he ; " it was a very agreeable one. 



BV WILLIAM D. KELLEY. 



2gi 



Such a person is quite unknown to our official cir- 
cles or to those of Continental nations. Indeed, I 
think his place in history will be unique. He has 
not been trained to diplomacy or administrative 
affairs, and is in all respects one of the people. But 
how wonderfully he is endowed and equipped for the 
performance of the duties of the chief executive offi- 
cer of the United States at this time ! The precision 
and minuteness of his information on all questions 
to which we referred was a succession of surprises to 
me." 

WILLIAM D. KELLEY. 



iiiiiii'iiri'iiiiiiii » M»i irr 1 'ii 1 1 fsr?^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 




6Ja. a 



XV. 

Cassius M. Clay. 

WHILST I was a student In Transylvania 
University at Lexington, Kentucky, the 
main building, including the dormitory, was burned 
down, and I sought lodorinp^s with Robert Todd and 
wife, where I became acquainted with Miss Mary 
Todd. Her elder sister married Ninian Edwards, 
of Illinois, where Miss Todd followed and married 
Abraham Lincoln. I was on very agreeable terms 
with the Todd family, who were always my avowed 
friends during my antislavery career. So when I 
went to speak in the Fremont campaign at Spring- 
field, Illinois, in 1856, Abraham Lincoln and his law 
partner, O. S. Browning, called upon me. As I was 
speaking every day, I had but little time for social 
intercourse. The feeling against the liberal move- 
ment was as violent then in the free as in the slave 
States. Lovejoy had been killed not long before at 
Alton, and the State House was refused me. But, 
as the weather was pleasant, I spoke, in the grove 
which was about it, to an immense audience, for 
more than two hours. Lincoln and Browning lay 



294 



REMfNISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



upon the ground, whittling sticks, and heard me, 
throughout, with marked attention. Hurrying on 
to my appointments, I saw him then no more, I 
never shall forget his long, ungainly person, and 
plain, but even then sad and thoughtful features. 
He was but little known to the world, but his being 
the husband of my old friend of earlier days caused 
me to look with interest upon him. I flatter myself 
that I sowed good seed in good ground, which, in 
the providence of God, produced in time good fruit. 

Joshua and James Speed, now famous for their 
associations with Lincoln, Kentuckians and natives 
of Jefferson County, Kentucky, were my schoolmates, 
and relatives of John Speed Smith, who married my 
eldest sister Eliza. A few years ago Joshua was in- 
vited to deliver a lecture at Berea College, in my 
county, upon Lincoln. This college, of which I and 
John G. Fee were the founders, is about fourteen 
miles from Richmond by the old buggy road. I 
heard Speed's lecture with great interest, and taking 
him in my carriage, drove him to my sister Smith's 
residence, about twelve miles north-east from Berea. 
On the route we naturally talked much of Lincoln, 
of which conversation I will eive some account. 

Joshua Speed, the son of a wealthy farmer, quit 
Kentucky and set up a miscellaneous store in the 
capital of Illinois, then a mere backwoods village. 
One day an awkward green stranger of great stature 



BY CASSIUS M. CLAY. 295 

and as much diffidence entered his store, and asked 
Speed if he could fit him out with bedding and a 
few other named articles. Speed said " Yes ; " when 
Lincoln went around and examined each article 
carefully, making a memorandum with Speed of the 
same. When his list was completed, he asked for 
the whole sum of the bill, which was about thirty 
dollars. Upon that, Lincoln, looking grave, said: 
" As this is more than I expected, I have not so 
much money, and am sorry to have put you to so 
much trouble." Speed then asked him his name and 
business, when Lincoln said that he was just com- 
mencing the practice of the law in Springfield, and 
wanted to fit up a small office and sleeping-room. 
Speed then told him that he would credit him for 
the amount. This Lincoln steadily refused, and was 
about to depart, when Speed said : - Mr. Lincoln, 
since you refuse a credit, and as I am an unmarried 
man, and have a double bed up-stairs, I will be glad 
to share it with you till you can make more agree- 
able arrangements." To this Lincoln did not at 
once accede, but went up-stairs and examined the 
bed, no doubt to see whether it was large enough 
without annoying his host, and cordially accepted 
his generosity. For many years he continued to 
sleep with Speed, which gave him an eminent oppor- 
tunity to study Lincoln's character. This rude style 
of living, unknown in more wealthy and refined 



296 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

society, was often a necessity in a pioneer country, 
to which all ranks were at times accustomed. The 
limits here imposed forbid my enlarging upon these 
incidents, but I will name a few. Traveling one day 
in his company, a storm blew some young birds 
from their nest, Lincoln dismounted from his horse 
in the rain, and tenderly replaced them. Once 
pleading a cause, the opposing lawyer had all the 
advantage of the law in the case ; the weather was 
warm, and his opponent, as was admissible in 
frontier courts, pulled off his coat and vest as he 
grew warm in the argument. At that time shirts 
with the button behind were unusual. Lincoln took 
in the situation at once, knowing the prejudices of 
a primitive people against pretension of all sorts, or 
any affectation of superior social rank. Arising, he 
said : " Gentlemen of the jury, having justice on my 
side, I don't think you will be at all influenced by 
the gentleman's pretended knowledge of the law, 
when you see he does not even know which side of 
his shirt should be in front." There was a general 
laugh, and Lincoln's case was won. Speed further 
said that as soon as Lincoln was elected President, 
he wrote to him to name any ofifice he would like to 
have. But he wrote back that his business was 
better than any office the President could give him. 
However, afterward Lincoln made his brother, 
James Speed, Attorney-General. The old apothegm, 



BY CASSIUS M. CLAY. 297 

" If you want to know a man, travel with him 
or live with him," was intensified in Speed's case. 
His judgment, therefore, of Lincoln's character is 
of great value. He regarded him as humane, phil- 
anthropic, and eminently the most just man he ever 
knew, and that he well deserved of all men the name 

of " Honest Abe." ^ 

His debate with Stephen A. Douglas not only 
showed great ability, but a liberal tendency. And 
though Douglas was the first popular speaker of his 
day, Lincoln won on the convictions of the people ; 
so that, although Douglas was chosen the Senator of 
Illinois, the debate, as taken down by stenographers, 
was published by the Whigs, and widely distributed 
as a campaign document. This brought Lincoln 
prominently before the nation as the liberal candi- 
date. He was invited to speak in New York by the 
young Whigs and Liberals, and I met him again for 
the second time, and had on the cars a long talk 
with him on my favorite policy. Lincoln as usual 
was a good listener ; and when I had accumulated 
all my arguments in favor of liberation he said : 
" Clay, I always thought that the man who made the 
corn should eat the corn." This homely illustration 
of his sentiments has lingered ever in my memory as 
one of the most eminent arguments against slavery. 
The famous Robert G. Breckinridee said : " The 
highest of all rights is the right of a man to him- 



1 



298 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

self." As a splendid and axiomatic declaration It has 
not been surpassed in antislavery literature ; but it is 
only a declaration. Whereas Lincoln's saying is not 
only a declaration, but an argument and a conclu- 
sion. 

Salmon P. Chase was my first choice for President, 
but as Ben. Wade divided Ohio, he was thrown out 
of the race. Wm. H. Seward was my next choice ; 
but when he made his great electioneering speech 
in the Senate, where he declared himself in favor of 
Union, with or without slavery, he became in my 
view an unimportant factor in the great liberal 
movement of our times. So I took up Lincoln as a 
more reliable man. The result is history. 

As soon as Lincoln was nominated he wrote me a 
letter offering the post of Secretary of War, which 
seemed to be the general desire of the Chicago con- 
vention of i860. (See letter, Kentucky Historical 
Society.) He also wrote me several letters asking 
me to speak in Indiana and Illinois, in one of which 
he wrote from Springfield, Illinois, July 20, i860: 
" In passing, let me say, that at Rockport you will 
be in the county within which I was brought up from 
my eighth year, having left Kentucky at that part 
of my life." I spoke in Indiana and Illinois, both of 
which we carried, but S. Cameron was made Sec- 
retary of War. 

After I refused to go for Seward he became my 



BY CASSIUS M. CLAY. 299 

personal enemy. Relying upon Lincoln's promise, I 
never saw him till after the inauguration ; but Seward, 
aided by the Southern Whigs, persuaded him that my 
appointment would be " a declaration of war upon 
the South " — at least Lincoln was thus influenced. 

Without my knowledge, I was heralded as the 
Minister Plenipotentiary to Madrid. I at once went 
on to Washington and told Lincoln that I would not 
go to an old effete government like Spain. He 
seemed very reticent and grave, but asked me what 
office I would have. I said, since the Cabinet was 
full, I would go to England or France as Minister. 
He said Seward had promised those posts to Charles 
Francis Adams and Wm. L. Dayton. "Then," said 
L taking my hat, "I will go home." Lincoln then 
said : " Clay, don't go home ; I will consider the mat- 
ter." The same day I dined with the leading Re- 
publicans of the nation then in Washington, at the 
house of the Belgian Minister, Sanford, At an early 
hour I was called to the hall to see Senator Baker 
from Oregon, with whom I was intimate, we having 
been toofether in the Mexican War. He was killed 
at Ball's Bluff. Baker said he had conversed with 
Lincoln about me, and the President was anxious to 
satisfy my aspirations; the country was divided into 
personal and political factions, and it was hard to 
solidify the party — would I not accept the mission 
to Russia ? I replied, that I had spent my life and 



300 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

fortune in the public service — canvassed for five 
Presidents who held power, and never asked or re- 
ceived an office ; that now, when I could accept one 
— without compromise of my principles — the hungry 
harpies, mercenary camp-followers, swooped down 
upon me. No, I would go home and stay there. 
Baker seemed to feel the injustice done me, but con- 
tinued : "You have made great sacrifices, but does 
not patriotism require still more ? Lincoln thinks 
your return home would seriously injure the party 
and the country : and so do I." I then said : " Well, 
Russia is a young and powerful nation, and must 
greatly figure in our affairs : I will accept." Without 
ceremony, Baker said : " Get your hat, and we will go 
to the White House at once.'' We went ; and with- 
out sending up a card, we entered Lincoln's recep- 
tion-room. He was alone, and evidently awaiting 
us. He was quite sad and thoughtful. With his 
head bent down in silence he awaited Baker's re- 
port, who, without sitting down, said: " Mr. Lincoln, 
our friend Clay will accept the Russian mission." 
Lincoln then rose up, and, advancing rapidly toward 
me, firmly took my hand and said : " Clay, you have 
relieved me from great embarrassment." 

I went home at once, brought my family to Wash- 
ington, and was ready to set out for Europe, when 
the railroad and telegraph lines north were cut, and 
the ships sunk in the Chesapeake Bay, and the re- 



BY CASSIUS M. CLAY. 3OI 

bellion was fairly begun. I sent my family to Phila- 
delphia on the last train that passed north, and 
stayed myself in defense of the capital. I and Sen- 
ator James Lane, of Kansas, at once organized a bat- 
talion, of which I was chosen commander, and we 
assisted in the expulsion of the rebels, and the de- 
fence of the President, the City of Washington, the 
Federal offices and buildings. For the design of 
the Slave-Power was to capture all these, and thus 
gain recognition by the nations as the government 
de facto. As commander of the "Clay Battalion," I 
was in close contact with the President, and the age of 
General Winfield Scott, and the general distrust and 
treason of the regular army, gave me almost dicta- 
torial power for a time in Washington. Captured 
and distrusted spies were brought to me directly, and 
a quasi-ambassador, Hurlburt, from the ostensibly 
loyal men of Virginia, came to me with the terms of 
a truce, which will be more elaborately treated of in 
my forthcoming " Memoirs, Writings, and Speeches." 
These I reduced to writing and showed to Lincoln, 
which he carefully read, and said : " I think your 
course is well ; go and show them to some leading 
men, and act as you think best." This I did, and 
signed in my own name on honor, as the government 
could not recognize any of these revolutionary claims 
of disloyal authority. The capital being safe by the 
arrival of the New York, Massachusetts, and Penn- 



302 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

sylvania volunteers, I sailed from Boston to Eu- 
rope. For my services Lincoln gave me his cor- 
dial thanks, issued an order of honor through the 
Secretary of War, Simon Cameron, and presented 
me with a Colt's revolver. 

Through Seward's enmity I was recalled in the fall 
of 1862, receiving the compliments of the depart- 
ment and a commission of major-general of volun- 
teers at the same time. 

I found, on my return, the Union army powerless, 
and the City of Washington in danger of capture. I 
declared openly for liberation of the slaves captured 
in war, and of all the States in rebellion. All the 
Cabinet but Salmon P. Chase, were either against 
this policy or temporizing. Stanton and Halleck 
seemed determined to ruin all the old antislavery 
generals — as Fremont, Blair, etc. ; and finding my- 
self under their proscription, notwithstanding Sec- 
retary Chase's backing, I determined to return to 
Europe, if I could. I went to Lincoln and gave my 
reasons for a change of policy — that European Gov- 
ernments would go against us if we fought simply for 
the Union, but that England and France, especially, 
dared not interfere if we fougfht for the liberation of 
the slaves ; that the Democrats wanted peace on any 
terms, and the Liberals were divided by a temporiz- 
ing course. What was the use of fighting for the old 
Union with the cancer of slavery left? Better make 



BY CASSJUS M. CLAY. 003 

peace on any terms. Let us nail our banner of uni- 
versal liberty to the mast, and if fall we must, we 
would at least fall with honor, leaving a legacy of in- 
estimable value to an immortal cause. I said I had 
been recalled without my consent, and was now 
trammeled by the hatred of Stanton and Halleck, 
and I wanted to return to Europe. Lincoln heard 
me with great patience in silence. He then said : 
" Seward told me you wished to return." I replied, 
" It is untrue.""^ I then said for the first time : " You 
promised me the place of Secretary of War, which 
you gave to Cameron. Now Cameron drives me 
again from my post at St. Petersburg." Lincoln then 
said : " I was persuaded that such appointment of 
you would be a declaration of war against the South, 
and whoever heard of a reformer reaping the reward 
of his labors in his lifetime ? " He then went on to 
say that he had no reason to refuse to send me back 
to Russia. Halleck had ordered me to report to 
General B. F. Butler at once in New Orleans. Lin- 
coln tore up the order, and said : " There is much in 
what you say which has had my serious thought, but 
we have as much as we can now carry, and I fear if 
the proclamation of freedom should be issued, Ken- 
tucky would go out to the South." I said, " No ; I 
have discussed the liberal issue all these years in my 
own State ; those who would favor the rebellion are 

* See Lincoln's letter in Men of Progress, 1869-70, New York. 



304 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

already in arms, those remaining are for the Union 
with or without slavery ; ten men would not be 
changed." " If I thought so I would act at once. 
The Legislature is in session, go down and see what 
they will do in such case." So, making a few speeches 
North on my way, I came to Frankfort just as Kirby 
Smith was marching his victorious troops against 
my county town — Richmond. The Legislature ad- 
journed, and both branches heard me in the Hall of 
the House of Representatives. I was not only heard 
with patience, but often cheered. The part touching 
liberation was written down and handed to the re- 
porter of the Cincin7iati Gazette. The whole speech 
reported was handed by me to Lincoln, who on the 
22d day of September, 1862, issued his immortal 
proclamation of liberation. Seward and all the 
leading Whig and Republican journals opposed the 
proclamation and my return to Russia. The Louis- 
ville Journal said I ought to be neither general nor 
minister, but deserved to be sent to prison. Mr. 
Lincoln said to me : " Don't be uneasy about your- 
self and your return to St. Petersburg. Seward and 
no other man can hurt you. We have no confidence 
in Seward's friendship, and he is kept in office only 
for reasons of state." I saw much of Mr. Lincoln 
at the White House and the Soldiers' Home. The 
new movement gave confidence to our cause at home 
and abroad, and I left my life-friend in better spirits, 



BY CASSIUS M. CLAY. 305 

and our armies on the road to victory. I saw no 
more of the martyr President. 

When a number of the first citizens of New York 
desired the pardon of a former collector for defalca- 
tion, and a large delegation of gentlemen and ladles 
came down to Washington, my aid was Invoked. I 
went with a numxber of gentlemen, and spoke to 
Lincoln In behalf of the delinquent. The President 
heard me with great patience and silence, and when 
I had finished, he said : " If I pardon this man, and 
my collector takes away the public money, what shall 
I do ? " That settled It. 

But he was not always so stern. Three of my 
friends in Kentucky, Democrats, had been Impris- 
oned In Ohio for disloyalty. I asked their pardon, 
saying I was sure they would keep their mouths 
shut and be loyal to the government thereafter. 
Without a word Lincoln wrote their pardon. 

I was one day with Lincoln, when a report came 
that one of our unionists was caught In Virginia by 
the rebels and condemned to death, the choice being 
left him to be hung or shot. I saw a trace of humor 
pass over his sad face when he said he was reminded 
of a camp-meeting of colored Methodists In his ear- 
lier days. There was a brother who responded often 
to the preacher with "Amen," " Bless the Lord," etc. 
The preacher drew a strong line, sweeping the sin- 
ners on both sides Into the devil's net : "All those 
20 



306 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOIN. 

who thus sin are in the downward path to ruin, and 
all those who so act, including about the whole 
human race, are on the sure 7'oad to hell." The 
unctuous brother, bewildered, cried out : " Bless the 
Lord, this nigger takes to the woods ! '" 

When Charles Francis Adams delivered his eulogy 
upon Seward, by invitation, at Albany, New York, I 
wrote a reply which was widely spread in the jour- 
nals, to which I refer those who care to know my 
estimate of Lincoln. I need not say that I place 
him first of all his contemporaries in natural ability 
and devoted patriotism. 

C. M. CLAY. 



XVI. 

Robert G. Ingersoll 

STRANGE mingling of mirth and tears, of the 
tragic and grotesque, of cap and crown, of Soc- 
rates and Rabelais, of ^sop and Marcus Aurelius, 
of all that is gentle and just, humorous and honest, 
merciful, wise, laughable, lovable and divine, and 
all consecrated to the use of man ; while through 
all, and over all, an overwhelmino- sense of obli- 
gation, of chivalric loyalty to truth, and upon all 
the shadow of the traofic end. 

Nearly all the great historic characters are im- 
possible monsters, disproportioned by flattery, or 
by calumny deformed. We know nothing of their 
peculiarities, or nothing but their peculiarities. 
About the roots of these oaks there clings none 
of the earth of humanity. Washington is now only 
a steel engraving. About the real man who lived 
and loved and hated and schemed we know but 
little. The glass through which we look at him is 
of such high magnifying power that the features are 
exceedingly indistinct. Hundreds of people are now 
engaged in smoothing out the lines of Lincoln's face 



308 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

— forcine all features to the common mold — so that 
he may be known, not as he really was, but, accord- 
ing to their poor standard, as he should have been. 

Lincoln was not a type. He stands alone — no 
ancestors, no fellows, and no successors. He had 
the advantage of living in a new country, of social 
equality, of personal freedom, of seeing in the hori- 
zon of his future the perpetual star of hope. He 
preserved his individuality and his self-respect. He 
knew and mingled with men of every kind ; and, after 
all, men are the best books. He became acquainted 
with the ambitions and hopes of the heart, the means 
used to accomplish ends, the springs of action and 
the seeds of thought. He was familiar with nature, 
with actual things, with common facts. He loved 
and appreciated the poem of the year, the drama of 
the seasons. 

In a new country, a man must possess at least three 
virtues — honesty, courage and generosity. In culti- 
vated society, cultivation is often more important 
than soil. A well executed counterfeit passes more 
readily than a blurred genuine. It is necessary 
only to observe the unwritten laws of society — to be 
honest enough to keep out of prison, and generous 
enough to subscribe in public — where the subscription 
can be defended as an investment. In a new country, 
character is essential ; in the old, reputation is suf- 
ficient. In the new, they find what a man really is ; 



BV ROBERT G. INGERSOLL. 300 

in the old, he generally passes for what he resembles. 
People separated only by distance are much nearer 
together than those divided by the walls of caste. 

It is no advantage to live in a great city, where * 
poverty degrades and failure brings despair. The 
fields are lovelier than paved streets, and the great 
forests than walls of brick. Oaks and elms are 
more poetic than steeples and chimneys. In the 
country is the idea of home. There you see the 
rising and setting sun ; you become acquainted with 
the stars and clouds. The constellations are your 
friends. You hear the rain on the roof and listen 
to the rhythmic sighing of the winds. You are 
thrilled by the resurrection called Spring, touched 
and saddened by Autumn, the grace and poetry of 
death. Every field is a picture, a landscape ; every 
landscape, a poem ; every flower, a tender thought ; 
and every forest, a fairy-land. In the country you 
preserve your identity — your personality. There 
you are an aggregation of atoms, but in the city 
you are only an atom of an aggregation. 

Lincoln never finished his education. To the 
night of his death he was a pupil, a learner, an in- 
quirer, a seeker after knowledge. You have no idea 
how many men are spoiled by what is called educa- 
tion. For the most part, colleges are places where 
pebbles are polished and diamonds are dimmed. If 
Shakespeare had graduated at Oxford, he might 



3IO REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

have been a quibbling attorney or a hypocritical 
parson. 

Lincoln was a many-sided man, acquainted with 
smiles and tears, complex in brain, single in heart, 
direct as light ; and his words, candid as mirrors, 
gave the perfect image of his thought. He was 
never afraid to ask — never too dignified to admit 
that he did not know. No man had keener wit or 
kinder humor. He was not solemn. Solemnity is a 
mask worn by ignorance and hypocrisy — it is the 
preface, prologue, and index to the cunning or the 
stupid. He was natural in his life and thought — 
master of the story-teller's art, in illustration apt, in 
application perfect, liberal in speech, shocking Phari- 
sees and prudes, using any word that wit could dis- 
infect. 

He was a logician. Logic is the necessary product 
of intelligence and sincerity. It cannot be learned. 
It is the child of a clear head and a eood heart. 
He was candid, and with candor often deceived 
the deceitful. He had intellect without arro- 
gance, genius without pride, and religion without 
cant — that is to say, without bigotry and without 
deceit. 

He was an orator — clear, sincere, natural. He 
did not pretend. He did not say what he thought 
others thought, but what he thought. If you wish 
to be sublime you must be natural — you must keep 



BV ROBERT G. INGERSOLL. 311 

close to the grass. You must sit by the fireside of 
the heart : above the clouds it is too cold. You 
must be simple in your speech : too much polish 
suggests insincerity. The great orator idealizes the 
real, transfigures the common, makes even the in- 
animate throb and thrill, fills the gallery of the 
imagination with statues and pictures perfect in 
form and color, brings to light the gold hoarded 
by memory, the miser — shows the glittering coin to 
the spendthrift, hope — enriches the brain, ennobles 
the heart, and quickens the conscience. Between 
his lips, words bud and blossom. 

If you wish to know the difference between an 
orator and an elocutionist — between what is felt and 
what is said— between what the heart and brain can 
do together and what the brain can do alone — -read 
Lincoln's wondrous words at Gettysburg, and then 
the speech of Edward Everett. The oration of Lin- 
coln will never be forgotten. It will live until lan- 
guages are dead and lips are dust. The speech of 
Everett will never be read. The elocutionists be- 
lieve in the virtue of voice, the sublimity of syntax, 
the majesty of long sentences, and the genius of ges- 
ture. The orator loves the real, the simple, the nat- 
ural. He places the thought above all. He knows 
that the greatest ideas should be expressed in the 
shortest words — that the greatest statues need the 
least drapery. 



312 



REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



Lincoln was an immense personality — firm but not 
obstinate. Obstinacy is egotism — firmness, heroism. 
He influenced others without effort, unconsciously; 
and they submitted to him as men submit to nature, 
unconsciously. He was severe with himself, and for 
that reason lenient with others. He appeared to 
apologize for being kinder than his fellows. He did 
merciful things as stealthily as others committed 
crimes. Almost ashamed of tenderness, he said and 
did the noblest words and deeds with that charm- 
ino- confusion — that awkwardness — that is the perfect 
grace of modesty. As a noble man, wishing to pay 
a small debt to a poor neighbor, reluctantly offers a 
hundred-dollar bill and asks for change, fearing that 
he may be suspected either of making a display of 
wealth or a pretense of payment, so Lincoln hesi- 
tated to show his wealth of goodness, even to the 
best he knew. 

A great man stooping, not wishing to make his 
fellows feel that they were small or mean. 

He knew others, because perfectly acquainted with 
himself. He cared nothing for place, but every- 
thing for principle ; nothing for money, but every- 
thing for independence. Where no principle was 
involved, easily swayed — willing to go slowly, if in 
the right direction — sometimes willing to stop, but 
he would not go back, and he would not go wrong. 
He was willine to wait. He knew that the event 



BY ROBERT G. INGERSOLL. 313 

was not waiting, and that fate was not the fool of 
chance. He knew that slavery had defenders, but 
no defense, and that they who attack the right must 
wound themselves. He was neither tyrant nor 
slave. He neither knelt nor scorned. With him, 
men were neither great nor small, — they were right 
or wrong. Through manners, clothes, titles, rags 
and race he saw the real — that which is. Beyond 
accident, policy, compromise and war he saw the 
end. He was patient as Destiny, whose unde- 
cipherable hieroglyphs were so deeply graven on 
his sad and tragic face. 

Nothing discloses real character like the use of 
power. It is easy for the weak to be gentle. Most 
people can bear adversity. But if you wish to 
know what a man really is, give him power. This 
is the supreme test. It is the glory of Lincoln that, 
having almost absolute power, he never abused It, 
except upon the side of mercy. 

Wealth could not purchase, power could not awe 
this divine, this loving man. He knew no fear ex- 
cept the fear of doing wrong. Hating slavery, 
pitying the master — seeking to conquer, not persons, 
but prejudices — he was the embodiment of the self- 
denial, the courage, the hope, and the nobility of a 
nation. He spoke, not to inflame, not to upbraid, 
but to convince. He raised his hands, not to 
strike, but in benediction. He longed to pardon. 



314 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

He loved to see the pearls of joy on the cheeks 
of a wife whose husband he had rescued from 
death. 

Lincoln was the grandest figure of the fiercest 
civil war. He is the gentlest memory of our world. 

ROBERT G. INGERSOLL. 



# XVII. 

A. H. Markland. 

NOT long after the November election of i860, 
an association was formed in Washington City 
for the purpose of gathering information as to the 
real condition of political affairs in the South with 
reference to threatened secession, and to organize for 
such remedies as might seem necessary. This asso- 
ciation was composed of gentlemen mainly from the 
Southern States, who were for the maintenance of 
the Union at whatever cost. Some were the person- 
al friends of Abraham Lincoln, others had opposed 
his election. In the membership were men who had 
held prominent positions in the public service, and 
who were skilled in political diplomacy. This asso- 
ciation held Its meetings for consultation daily and 
nightly during the winter months of i860 and 1861, 
and though the meetings were not absolutely secret 
they were not openly public. I was one of the young 
members of the association. It is not material to 
state what steps were taken or what methods were 
adopted to accomplish the work in view. It is suf- 



3l6 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

ficlent to say that while the disunlonlsts had their 
agents visiting State capitals and the large cities to 
address Legislatures and the people generally on the 
beauties of secession, the Unionists were educating 
them in a more quiet way to its folly and danger. 

It was through this association I became personally 
acquainted with Abraham Lincoln shortly after his 
inauguration. 

My first interview with Mr. Lincoln was in com- 
pany with some of his intimate personal friends, who 
called informally to pay their respects to him as the 
President of the United States. When the salutations 
and congratulations were being made to Mr. Lincoln, 
one of his secretaries placed some papers on his table 
for signature. Mr. Lincoln excused himself for the 
moment by this remark : 

"Just wait now until I sign some papers, that this 
government may go on." 

The papers being signed, Mr. Lincoln entered into 
a chatty conversation on public subjects, in which he 
gave his views on the situation as then presented by 
the attitude of the Southern States. He was then 
hopeful that a more serious phase of the threatened 
trouble might be averted, and that the better judg- 
ment of the citizens of the South might prevail. But 
he was very decided and determined as to what his 
duty was and what his action would be, if the seces- 
sionists and disunionists pressed their case. He said : 



BY A. H. MARKLAND. 31 7 

" The disunionists did not want me to take the 
oath of office. I have taken it, and I intend to ad- 
minister the office for the benefit of the people, in 
accordance with the Constitution and the law." 

The interview was of short duration, but of con- 
sequence as showing that Mr. Lincoln had in no 
measure been inattentive to the growth of disunion 
sentiment in the South, nor was he in doubt as to 
what means should be taken to check its progress. 
He had said to a prominent Democratic politician of 
the State of Kentucky who called upon him at Spring- 
field, Illinois, immediately after the November elec- 
tion : 

" The Fugitive Slave law will be better adminis- 
tered under my administration than it ever has been 
under that of my predecessors. If your party has 
been honest in its execution I will see that my party 
is equally honest in Its execution." 

The gentleman said in reply : 

" Mr. Lincoln, if you will put that In writing that 
I make take it South and show it to the people, I will 
guarantee to save every State from secession except 
probably South Carolina." 

Mr. Lincoln said : 

''Sir, these are my views, given to you honestly 
and with good intent. You may use them as you 
think proper. It would be indelicate and uncalled 
for to put them in writing, at this time, for the pur- 



3l8 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

pose you indicate. I have not yet been placed in 
charge of the government. When the time comes 
for me to assume authority, I will speak plainly and 
explicitly, and no man who is for the Union will mis- 
take me." 

The gentleman, with whom this conversation was 
had, has repeated it to me within the last few days. 

The persuasive methods of Mr. Lincoln and his 
friends for the adjustment of the differences be- 
tween the Unionists and disunionists were destroyed 
by Beauregard's bombardment of Fort Sumter. 
The business of active war was inaugurated. At 
a consultation between Mr. Lincoln and a number 
of Kentuckians then in Washington City, it was 
determined that come what would Kentucky should 
not be plunged into secession and war against the 
Union. The importance of that State in the prose- 
cution of the struggle for the supremacy of the law 
and the Union was such that it was deemed advis- 
able to observe the most conciliatory policy in 
relation to it. It was, however, understood that 
preparations should be made for the emergency if 
the conciliatory policy should fail. The earnestness 
with which Mr. Lincoln looked to the importance 
and action of Kentucky was shown by his language 
at that conference. He said : 

" Kentucky must not be precipitated into seces- 
sion. She is the key to the situation. With her 



BY A. II. MARKLAND. 319 

faithful to the Union the discord in the other States 
will come to an end. She is now in the hands of 
those who do not represent the people. The senti- 
ment of her State officials must be counteracted. 
We must arouse the young men of the State to 
action for the Union. We must know what men in 
Kentucky have the confidence of the people, and 
who can be relied on for good judgment, that they 
may be brought to the support of the Government 
at once." 

He paid a high tribute to the patriotism of the 
Southern men who had stood up against secession. 
He said : 

" But they are as a rule beyond the meridian of 
life, and their counsels and example do not operate 
quickly, if at all, on the excitable nature of young 
men, who become inflamed by the preparations of 
war, and who, in such a war as this will be, if it 
goes on, are apt to go In on the side that gives the 
first opportunity. The young men must not be per- 
mitted to drift away from us. I know that the men 
who voted against me in Kentucky will not permit 
this government to be swept away by any such 
issue as that framed by the disunionists. We need 
only to organize against Governor McGoffin's fol- 
lowers to beat them." 

In this consultation or conference Mr. Lincoln 
was the principal spokesman, and both in manner 



220 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

and matter he gave evidence that he was not a 
novice in leadership. 

Immediately a campaign for the Union was begun 
in Kentucky. A pacific campaign it was. Warlike 
preparations were openly going on within the bor- 
ders of every other State in the Union. What was 
being done in Kentucky was the work of the pen 
and the eloquence of the orator, for the Union or 
neutrality, which was only another name for seces- 
sion. The State could not be dragooned into 
open secession, therefore the neutrality policy was 
adopted. That policy was more rigidly observed 
by Mr. Lincoln than it was by his opponents, but 
he was not m.isled by it. On the contrary, he 
knew its treachery, and prepared for it. Lieuten- 
ant William Nelson, of the United States Army, a 
native of the State of Kentucky, was detailed for 
a special service — a service requiring intelligence, 
courage, and an accurate knowledge of men. Judge 
Joseph Holt made eloquent appeals for the Union 
through the columns of the press and from the 
forum, as did the Speeds, the Goodloes, and many 
others of prominence. Rousseau, Jacob, Pound- 
baker and others stood ofuard in the Lefrislature, 
and by their eloquence stayed the tide of disunion 
there. Camps for recruiting for the Union were 
formed on the north bank of the Ohio River. 
Cairo, Illinois, was occupied by Union troops. The 



BY A. H. MARKLAND. 32 1 

neutrality doctrine of Kentucky was fast approach- 
ing the end of its usefulness to the Confederates. 
It had been violated by them in the establishment 
of Camps Boone and Trusdale, on the southern 
border. Generals Pillow and Polk occupied Hick- 
man and Columbus respectively. General Grant 
and his Union troops at once occupied Paducah, 
Kentucky, and the head-quarters of the Department ^ 
of the Cumberland were removed from Cincinnati, 
Ohio, to Southern Kentucky. The special service 
of Lieutenant William Nelson, of the United States 
Army, had been prudently and faithfully performed, 
and the arms and munitions of war, with which he 
had been intrusted, were in the hands of Union men 
in the very centre of the State. The labors of 
Judge Holt, the Speeds, the Goodloes, Cassius M. 
Clay, and their followers, had brought forth fruit 
for the Union. The patriotic men in the Legisla- 
ture had done their work well. The men in the 
camps on the north side of the Ohio River moved 
over into Kentucky, and the invasion of Confeder- 
ates, which was to sweep Kentucky into secession, 
was at an end. Kentucky was saved to the Union 
by the wise counsel and pacific policy of Abraham 
Lincoln. 

The Unionists of Kentucky who were in the City 
of Washington during the summer of 1861 — that 
summer of excitement, and oftentimes of positive 



322 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

discouragement — will remember with what faith and 
how earnestly and tenderly Abraham Lincoln clung 
to Kentucky. He was willing to commission her 
citizens, though they had declared against him, 
saying : 

"A Kentuckian who will accept a commission from 
me will not betray his trust." 

From the occupation of Paducah, Kentucky, may 
be dated the warm and unswerving friendship of 
Abraham Lincoln for General U. S. Grant. Other 
friends may have wavered in their friendship for 
General Grant, and even recommended his removal 
from command, but Abraham Lincoln was faithful 
to General Grant through evil and good report. If 
his confidence was ever shaken he had the manliness 
to tell him of it and ask his pardon. May ii not be 
that when General Grant recently said, as reported, 
" that he had friends on the other side," he was 
mindful that Abraham Lincoln was among the 
number. 

To recur to the Paducah proclamation above 
referred to, I heard Mr. Lincoln use these words 
about it : 

" The modesty and brevity of that address to the 
citizens of Paducah show that the officer issuing it 
understands the situation, and is a proper man to 
command there at this time." 

I give the official text of it : 



BY A. H. MARKLAND. ^23 

"PROCLAMATION TO THE CITIZENS OF PADUCAH. 

" I have come among you, not as an enemy, but 
as your friend and fellow-citizen ; not to injure or 
annoy you, but to respect the rights and to defend 
and enforce the rights of all loyal citizens. An 
enemy in rebellion against our common Govern- 
ment has taken possession of and planted its guns 
upon the soil of Kentucky, and fired upon our flag. 
Hickman and Columbus are in his hands. He is 
moving upon your city. I am here to defend you 
against this enemy, and 'to assert and maintain the 
authority and sovereignty of your Government and 
mine. I have nothing to do with opinions. I shall 
deal only with armed rebellion and its aiders and 
abettors. 

" You can pursue your usual avocations without 
fear or hinderance. The strong arm of the Govern- 
ment is here to protect its friends and to punish 
only its enemies. 

" Whenever it is manifest that you are able to 
defend yourselves, to maintain the authority of the 
Government, and to protect the rights of all its loyal 
citizens, I shall withdraw the forces under my com- 
mand from your city. 

''U. S. GRANT, 
'^^ Brig. -Gen. U. S. A. Commanding, 

"Paducah, Sept. 6, 1861. 

''Official. T. S. BOWERS, A. A. G." 



324 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

A few weeks after the occupation of Paducah, Ken- 
tucky, I went to that section of the State as a Gov- 
ernment officer, and from that time until the close 
of the war I was in the lines of the United States 
army. I returned to Washington at monthly inter- 
vals and always called on Mr. Lincoln at such times. 
I therefore had an opportunity to see him under all 
circumstances, in times of victory and times of de- 
feat. I never saw him in an ill humor, or when he 
did not have some cheerful word of encouragement. 
I remember how kindly he would ask after different 
officers of an army. It was the good old-fashioned 
way of asking after their health, how they were 
getting along, whether the soldiers liked them or 
not ; and then he would tell some pleasant story of 
how they were brought to his attention and how it 
happened that they were commissioned. In many 
cases he had no personal acquaintance with the 
officers inquired after, nor were they of sufficient 
rank to attract his special attention. His inquiries 
were not directed to subjects which would be re- 
ferred to in official reports, or find their way into the 
columns of the newspapers. It seemed to me as if 
it was a relief to him to learn something of every-day 
life in the army, that he might judge the officers by 
their standing with the troops of their command, or 
by their traits of character as developed in camp, 
bivouac, or on the march. 



BV A. H. MARKLAND. 325 

I saw Mr. Lincoln quite frequently up to the time 
I left Washington City in October, 1861, and he 
more than once expressed a desire in writing as well 
as by verbal request that I should take a prominent 
and honorable office. Finally I became an officer of 
the Post-office Department, and was assigned to duty 
within the lines of the army under the command of 
General Grant. While in the West my duties re- 
quired me to visit Washington City almost every 
month, and at each time I called at the White House 
to see Mr. Lincoln. I was one of the officers of the 
government who came east with General Grant in 
March, 1864, when he came to take charge of the 
armies of the United States. From that time until 
December, 1864, when I left to join General Sher- 
man with the mails for his army when it came out to 
the sea, there was scarcely a week I did not see him. 

My last interview with Mr. Lincoln had a touch 
of pathos I can never forget, and I cannot properly 
describe. I remember his words well, but the ex- 
pression of his countenance and the modulation of 
his voice is far beyond any description I could give. 
When General Grant directed me to proceed to a 
point where I might possibly hear something of 
General Sherman's approach to the sea, he directed 
me also to call on Mr. Lincoln in Washington, and 
take any message Mr. Lincoln might have for Gen- 
eral Sherman. When I called, Mr. Lincoln was en- 



-^26 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

gaged with some gentlemen in his office. My card 
was sent to him, and immediately I was admitted. 
As I entered the door he arose and met me in the 
center of the room. Extending his hand to me, he 
said : 

" Well, Colonel, I got word from General Grant 
that you were going to find Sherman, and that you 
would take him any message I might have. I know 
you will find him, because we always get good news 
from you. Say to General Sherman, for me, when- 
ever and wherever you see him, ' God bless him and 
God bless his army.' That is as much as I can say, 
and more than I can write." 

He held my hand during the delivery of this mes- 
sage, and our eyes looked into each other's. The 
tear-drops gathered in his eyes, his lips trembled, 
and his voice faltered. He gave evidence of being 
greatly affected. He shook my hand, bade me good- 
by, and I proceeded toward the door, when he called 
to me. When I looked back he was standing like a 
statue where I had left him. " Now, remember what 
I say," and then he repeated the message. I passed 
out the door and never saw Mr. Lincoln again, but 
the language and picture of that meeting will never 
be forgotten. 

I met General Sherman in Ossabaw Sound, on the 
flagship of Admiral Dahlgren, immediately after the 
fall of Fort McAllister, and as soon as I could strike 



BY A. H. MARKLAND. 327 

hands with him I deHvered him the message, and by 
its language he was visibly affected. 

It has been thought that Mr. Lincoln was con- 
trolled by his Cabinet Ministers. My observation 
was quite to the contrary. He was the master-spirit 
of his administration, and, by unsurpassed tact, he 
kept them in harmony with each other and in line 
with himself. Mr. Lincoln controlled others by good 
common sense, perfect frankness, and genial nature. 
As President he was controlled only by law and the 
equities. He always had the courage to do the 
proper thing at the proper time. 

In the summer of 1864, Mr. Blair, the Postmaster- 
General, desired to have a certain character of or- 
ders relating to the postal service within the lines 
of the army. When the subject was brought to the 
attention of General Grant, he suggested that the 
proper orders ought to be issued by the Secretary 
of War, Mr. Stanton. A draft of the proposed 
orders was made in the Adjutant-General's ofifice at 
head-quarters, and a letter to accompany them was 
sent to the Postmaster-General. I was directed to 
go to the War Department and ask that the orders 
be issued. Mr. Stanton, the Secretary of War, de- 
clined to issue them to accommodate Mr. Blair, the 
Postmaster-General. The trouble was that there 
was a little official jealousy between the two Cabinet 
Ministers. When I returned to Mr. Blair with the 



228 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

information that the orders would not be issued by 
the Secretary of War, he said, "We will see," He 
wrote a letter to Mr. Lincoln, which he gave to me 
to deliver with the accompanying papers. The let- 
ter of Mr. Blair read in this way : 

" I would respectfully ask the President's attention 
to the within communication. While the mail com- 
munications with the army of the West have been 
satisfactory, those with the army here have not been. 
To remedy this I brought Colonel Markland here. 
He had been with General Grant and had his confi- 
dence. The General, you will perceive, prepared the 
requisite orders, but they remain unacted on in the 
War Department. 

"M. BLAIR, P. M. G. 

^^June 9, '64." 

When I delivered the letter, ]\Ir. Lincoln read it 
carefully and handed it back to me, saying : 

" What is the matter between Blair and Stanton ? " 
I told him all I knew in reference to the proposed 
orders. He then said : 

" If I understand the case, General Grant wants 
the orders issued, and Blair wants them issued, and 
you want them issued, and Stanton won't issue them. 
Now, don't you see what kind of a fix I will be in if 
I interfere? I'll tell you what to do: If you and 



BV A. H. MARKLAND. 2 29 

General Grant understand one another, suppose you 
try to get along without the orders, and if Blair or 
Stanton make a fuss I may be called in as a referee, 
and I may decide in your favor." 

The orders were never issued, and pleasant rela- 
tions were maintained on that score all around. 

That Abraham Lincoln was favored with a fund 
of humor and a sense of the ridiculous there can be 
no question; but as President he used those gifts, 
if they may be called gifts, for a worthy and laud- 
able purpose. When oppressed with care and 
anxiety, beset with importunities he could not 
grant, humor was to him a relief, and an encourage- 
ment to his despondent listener. His sympathies 
were with the people and for the people, and his 
only ambition was that the Union might be pre- 
served. It is a sincrular fact that all men who came 
in official or social relations with Abraham Lincoln 
while he was President were impressed with his un- 
selfish patriotism and unyielding integrity. 

A. H. MARKLAND. 



XVIII. 

Schuyler Colfax. 

THE careers of good and of great men are the 
true beacons of human progress. They are 
lights set upon a hill, illuminating the moral atmos- 
phere around them, and their thoughts and deeds 
hallow the nations to which they belong, and become 
the most priceless legacies of mankind. Thus Moses, 
David, Solomon, Plato, Socrates, Xenophon, Seneca, 
Cicero and Epictetus, still speak to us from their 
tombs even more impressively than when they lived 
and spoke and walked upon the earth. Indeed, as 
Carlyle taught us, universal history is, after all, only 
the history of great men ; and Ralph Waldo Emer- 
son insists, with remarkable force and with unques- 
tioned truth, that every institution is but the length- 
ened shadow of some great man who has passed 
away, as the Islamism of Mohammed, the Protest- 
antism of Luther, the Jesuitism of Loyola, the Puri- 
tanism of Calvin, the Methodism of Wesley, the 
Quakerism of Fox, and the universal emancipation. 

From the very beginning he believed exactly as 
when at the end. He compressed a whole volume of 



332 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

argument into the single, clear-cut and unanswerable 
sentence : " If slavery is not wrong, then nothing is 
wrong." 

Unanimously nominated for Senator by a repre- 
sentative State convention of Illinois, he startled and 
even alarmed many of his warmest and most enthu- 
siastic friends by fearlessly advancing in his speech of 
acceptance far beyond their lines. With unparalleled 
boldness for those days and that region, he declared. 
In ringing sentences characteristic of the man who 
was to become the foremost character in American 
history, and as positively as if an indisputable and 
uncontested axiom, that famous political aphorism, 
that government could not stand divided against it- 
self, half slave and half free. And in the debate that 
ensued with his great and talented antagonist. Ste- 
phen A. Douglas, he refused to retract or qualify a 
sino-le word of this daring, defiant avowal. Thus 
did Lincoln become, unconscious to himself, the 
political prophet of the new dispensation about to 
open upon our land. 

The success of the National cause was, with Mr. 
Lincoln as President, immeasurably higher than all 
other considerations, personal, political or humani- 
tarian. Hence, because he did not believe the op- 
portune moment had yet arrived, he refused, in 1861, 
to allow Secretary Cameron to arm the slaves, or 
Fremont, or Hunter, or Phelps to proclaim local 



£V SCHUYLER COLFAX. 333 

emancipation in the South. His favorite illustration 
in the discussions in those days with his confidential 
friends was, that a faithful surgeon must always strive 
to save both life and limb, even thousfh the limb was 
gangrened and diseased; but when that was impos- 
sible, then, at all hazards, he must save life and sacri- 
fice limb. His paramount duty was to save the life 
of the Union. He insisted, in his well-remembered 
reply to Greeley and others, that he could not strike 
at slavery until all other measures had failed. But 
at last, when forbearance had ceased to be a virtue, 
when every family altar was crimsoned with blood, 
every cemetery crowded with patriot graves, he felt 
the hour had struck, and he was ready. ^ 

Conversing with him one night in the telegraph 
ofifice of the War Department, he suddenly turned the 
subject from campaigns and battles to mental idio- 
syncrasies, discussing the individualities of Thaddeus 
Stevens, of Charles Sumner, and, last of all, Henry 
Wilson. After discussing the characteristics of others 
with a keenness of analysis that strikingly illustrated 
his own mental powers, he added that a peculiarity 
of his own life from his earliest manhood had been, 
that he habitually studied the opposite side of every 
disputed question, of every law case, of every politi- 
cal issue, more exhaustively, if possible, than his own 
side. He said that the result had been, that in all his 
long practice at the bar he had never once been sur- 



334 



REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOIN 



prised in court by the strength of his adversary's case 
— often finding it much weaker than he had feared. 
On the stump, as all who have heard him there will 
testify, he was just as ready to answer instanter the 
affirmations of his opponents as he was to present 
and vindicate his own. y 

This striking peculiarity of Mr. Lincoln's mental 
operations throws a flood of light upon the searching 
questions he propounded to the Chicago ministers, 
who called on him, in September, 1862, to demand of 
him a proclamation of emancipation. After listening 
to their appeal, he replied, pointedly : " Now, gentle- 
men, if I cannot enforce the Constitution down South, 
how am I to enforce a mere presidential proclama- 
tion ? Won't the world sneer at it as being as power- 
less as the Pope's bull against the comet ?" and they 
went away sorrowing, in the erroneous belief that he 
had decided the case adversely. Really, he had 
already resolved two months before on what they 
were pleading for, and only nine days after the inter- 
view the proclamation was issued. 

He had felt embarrassed only on that one point, 
and as they claimed that they had studied the sub- 
ject from every possible stand-point, he presented it 
to them, hoping that they would furnish some apt 
solution to strengthen him in his already inflexible 
purpose. 

One of these ministers felt it his duty to make a 



BV SCHUYLER COLFAX. 335 

more searching appeal to the President's conscience. 
Just as they were retiring, he turned, and said to Mr. 
Lincoln, " What you have said to us, Mr. President, 
compels me to say to you in reply, that it is a mes- 
sage to you from our Divine Master, through me, 
commanding you, sir, to open the doors of bondage 
that the slave may go free ! " Mr. Lincoln replied, 
instantly, " That may be, sir, for I have studied this 
question, by night and by day, for weeks and for 
months, but if it is, as you say, a message from your 
Divine Master, is it not odd that the only channel he 
could send it by was that roundabout route by that 
awfully wicked city of Chicago?" 

In precisely the same sense in which we say the 
child is father to the man, the Abraham Lincoln of 
the Western prairies was the^ father to the President 
Lincoln of the White House. There, in the West, 
he had reasoned out his political creed, had tested 
every theory at the bar of his judgment and of his 
conscience, had settled unalterably the principles of 
his life, had anchored himself on convictions that 
were immutable. So, in the frequent local contests 
at the bar, waged with men who afterward obtained 
brilliant distinction in law, in politics, and in elo- 
quence ; in the sharp antagonism of debate with one 
of the ablest and most adroit of American stump 
speakers, Judge Douglas ; he was intellectually 
armed and equipped for the responsibilities by which 



336 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

he was to be environed in the dark and perilous 
times of civil war. 

Time was Lincoln's Prime Minister. He always 
waited, as a wise man should wait, until the right 
moment brought up all his reserves. George W. 
Curtis exactly appreciated all his methods when he 
claimed for him that he sought to measure so accu- 
rately, so precisely, the public sentiment, that, when- 
ever he advanced, the loyal hosts of the nation 
would keep step with him. In regard to the policy 
of arminor the slaves ag-ainst the rebellion, never 
until the tide of patriotic volunteering had ebbed, 
and our soldiers saw their ranks rapidly melting 
away, could our colored troops have been added to 
their brigades without perilous discontent if not 
open revolt. Against* all appeals, all demands, 
against even threats of some members of his own 
party, Lincoln stood like a rock on this question 
until he felt that the opportune moment had arrived. 

When he reached Washington City to take the 
oath of office the ground shook under his feet, but 
when he was called to his final rest he left our re- 
public on a firm and solid basis. Annoyed from 
the very opening of his administration by persist- 
ent office-seekers engrossing nearly all his time, he 
used to exclaim, '' I seem like a man so busy letting 
rooms at one end of his house that he has no time 
left to put out the fire that is blazing and destroying 



BY SCHUYLER COLFAX. 2>o7 

at the other end." And when he was prostrated in 
the White House by an attack of small-pox, he said 
to his attendants, " Tell all the office-seekers to 
come at once, for now I have something I can give 
to all of them." No one except those who saw him 
daily at that time can realize how the nation's woes 
and trials bore upon him ; how his inner life was 
clouded with somber interests and disquietudes. 
One morning, calling upon him at an early hour on 
business, I found him so pale and careworn that I 
inquired the cause. He replied, telling me of bad 
news received at a late hour of the night, and not 
yet printed, adding that he had not closed his eyes 
nor breakfasted ; and then he said, with an anguished 
expression which I shall never forget, " How will- 
ingly would I exchange places to-day with the soldier 
who sleeps on the ground in the Army of the Poto- 
mac." 

The morning after the bloody battle of the Wil- 
derness, I saw him walk up and down the Executive 
Chamber, his long arms behind his back, his dark 
features contracted still more with gloom ; and as he 
looked up, I thought his face the saddest one I had 
ever seen. He exclaimed : "Why do we suffer re- 
verses after reverses ! Could we have avoided this 
terrible, bloody war ! Was it not forced upon us ! 
Is it ever to end !" But he quickly recovered, and 
told me the sad aggregate of those days of blood- 



00' 



REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



shed. Of course it is perfectly well known that the 
battle of the Wilderness, however, then claimed as a 
drawn battle, was, on the contrary, a bloody reverse 
to our arms, our loss in killed and wounded alone 
beino- fifteen thousand more than the Confederates. 
''^' Hope beamed on his face as he said, " Grant will 
not fail us now ; he says he will fight it out on that 
line, and this is now the hope of our country." An 
hour afterward, he was telling story after story to 
congressional visitors at the White House, to hide 
his saddened heart from their keen and anxious 
scrutiny. 
r No man clothed with such vast power ever wielded 
' it more tenderly and more forbearingly. No man 
holding in his hands the key of life and death ever 
pardoned so many offenders, and so easily. Judge 
Bates, of Missouri, his Attorney-General, insisted 
that lack of sternness was a marked defect in Lin- 
coln's character. He told Mr. Lincoln once in my 
presence that this defect made him unfit to be 
trusted with the pardoning power. Any touching 
story, specially one told by a woman, was certain to 
warp if not to control his decision. One winter 
night, while Congress was in session, I left all other 
business and asked him to pardon the son of a 
former constituent sentenced to be shot at Daven- 
port Barracks, Iowa, for desertion. He heard the 
story with his usual patience, although worried out 



BY SCHUYLER COLFAX. 339 

with incessant calls and cares, then replied : " Some 
of my generals complain that I impair discipline by 
my frequent pardons and reprieves ; but it rests me, 
after a day's hard work, that I can find some excuse 
for saving some poor fellow's life, and I shall go to 
bed happy to-night as I think how joyous the sign- 
ing of this name will make himself, his family and 
friends." And with a smile beaming on his care-fur- 
rowed face, he signed that name and saved that life, j 

The generals of the army were not always pleased 
with his calling them, so familiarly, " my generals," 
as I can illustrate by an incident. Walking up 
Pennsylvania Avenue one evening with several other 
members, on the road to the White House, a courier 
who had just dashed across the Long Bridge hailed 
us, and told us the news he was taking to the War 
Department. It seems that in the gray of that very 
morning a rebel raid in Falls Church, a little hamlet 
a dozen miles away, had surprised and captured a 
brigadier-general, and twelve army mules had got 
into the rebel lines before they could be recaptured. 
As we were going to the Executive Chamber, we 
thought we would tell Mr. Lincoln the news in ad- 
vance; but he said, instantly on hearing it; "How 
unfortunate; I can fill his place with one of my gen- 
erals in five minutes, but those mules cost us two 
hundred dollars apiece." 

Thaddeus Stevens, who so often criticised Mr. 



340 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Lincoln very severely for not being aggressive and 
destructive enough, used to tell, with great gusto, 
this story of his own personal experience. Mr. 
Stevens had gone with an old lady from Lancaster 
County, Pennsylvania (his district), to the White 
House, to ask the pardon of her son, condemned 
to die for sleeping on his post. The President sud- 
denly turned upon his cynical Pennsylvania friend, 
whom he knew had so often assailed him for ex- 
cessive lenity, and said, '' Now, Thad, what would 
you do in this case if you happened to be Presi- 
dent?" Mr. Stevens knew how many hundreds of 
his constituents were waiting breathlessly to hear 
the result of that old woman's pilgrimage to Wash- 
ington. Of course, Congressmen who desired to be 
re-elected liked to carry out the desires of their 
constituents. Stevens did not relish the President's 
home-thrust, but replied that, as he knew of the ex- 
tenuating circumstances, he would certainly pardon 
him. "Well, then," said Mr. Lincoln, after a mo- 
ment's writing in silence, " here, madam, is your son's 
pardon." Her gratitude filled her heart to over- 
flowing, and it seemed to her as though her son 
had been snatched from the gateway of the grave. 
She could only thank the President with her tears 
as she passed out, but when she and Mr. Stevens 
had reached the outer door of the White House 
she burst out, excitedly, " I knew it was a lie ! I 



BY SCHUYLER COLFAX. 34 1 

knew it was a lie ! " " What do you mean ? " asked 
her astonished companion, " Why, when I left my 
country home in old Lancaster yesterday, the neigh- 
bors told me that I would find that Mr. Lincoln was 
an ugly man, when he is really the handsomest man 
I ever saw in my life." And certainly, when sym- 
pathy and mercy lightened up those rugged features, 
many a wife and mother pleading for his interven- 
tion had reason to think him handsome indeed. 

Another historic illustration of the President's 
merciful temper had less excuse. There were from 
time to time, of course, instances of cowardice in the 
army in the face of the enemy — a crime justly 
punishable by the laws of war thoughout the world 
with death. In the earlier years of the war all the 
death penalties of courts-martial had to be sent up 
to the President, as commander-in-chief, for his ap- 
proval. When Judge Holt, the Judge- Advocate- 
General of the Army, laid the first case before the 
President, and explained it, he replied, "Well, I 
will keep this a few days until I have more time to 
read the testimony." That seemed quite reasonable. 
When the Judge explained the next case, Mr. Lin- 
coln said, " I must put this by until I can settle in 
my mind whether this soldier can better serve the 
country dead than living." 

To the third, he answered, "The general com- 
manding the brigade is to be here in a few days 



342 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

to consult with Stanton and myself about military 
matters ; I will wait until then, and talk the matter 
over with him." 

Finally, there was a very flagrant case of a soldier 
who, in the crisis of a battle, demoralized his regi- 
ment by his cowardice, throwing down his gun and 
hiding behind the friendly stump. When tried for 
his cowardice there was no defense. The court- 
martial, in examining his antecedents, found that 
he had neither father nor mother living, nor wife 
nor child ; that he was unfit to wear the loyal uni- 
form, and that he was a thief who stole continually 
from his comrades. " Here," said Judge Holt, "is a 
case which comes exactly within your requirements. 
He does not deny his guilt ; he will better serve 
the country dead than living, as he has no relations 
to mourn for him, and he is not fit to be in the ranks 
of patriots, at any rate." Mr. Lincoln's refuge of ex- 
cuse was all swept away. Judge Holt expected, of 
course, that he would write "approved" on the 
paper; but the President, running his long fingers 
through his hair, as he so often used to do when in 
anxious thought, replied, "Well, after all, Judge, I 
think I must put this with my leg cases." 

''Leg cases'' said Judge Holt, with a frown at this 
supposed levity of the President, in a case of life 
and death. "What do you mean by leg cases, sir? " 

" Why, why," replied Mr. Lincoln, " do you see 



BY SCHUYLER COLFAX. 343 

those papers crowded into those pigeon-holes ? 
They are the cases that you call by that long title, 
' cowardice in the face of the enemy,' but I call them, 
for short, my ' leg cases.' But I put it to you, and 
I leave it for you to decide for yourself : if Al- 
mighty God gives a man a cowardly pair of legs 
how can he help their running away with him ?" 

Let me give another anecdote bearing on the 
same subject. A Congressman went up to the 
White House one morning on business, and saw in 
the anteroom, always crowded with people in those 
days, an old man, crouched all alone in a corner, 
crying as if his heart would break. As such a sight 
was by no means uncommon, the Congressman 
passed into the President's room, transacted his 
business, and went away. The next morning he was 
obliored aeain to eo to the White House, and he saw 
the same old man crying, as before, in the corner. 
He stopped, and said to him, " What's the matter 
with you, old man ? " The old man told him the 
story of his son ; that he was a soldier in the Army 
of the James — General Butler's army — that he had 
been convicted by a court-martial of an outrageous 
crime and sentenced to be shot next week; and that 
his Congressman was so convinced of the convicted 
man's guilt that he would not intervene. " Well," 
said Mr. Alley, " I will take you into the Executive 
Chamber after I have finished my business, and you 



H4 



REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



can tell Mr. Lincoln all about it. On being intro- 
duced into Mr. Lincoln's presence, he was accosted 
with, "Well, my old friend, what can I do for you 
to-day?" The old man then repeated to Mr. Lin- 
coln what he had already told the Congressman in 
the anteroom. A cloud of sorrow came over the 
President's face as he replied, " I am sorry to say I 
can do nothing for you. Listen to this telegram 
received from General Butler yesterday : ' President 
Lincoln, I pray you not to interfere with the courts- 
martial of the army. You will destroy all discipline 
among our soldiers.' — B. F. Butler." 

Every word of this dispatch seemed like the death 
knell of despair to the old man's newly awakened 
hopes. Mr. Lincoln watched his grief for a min- 
ute, and then exclaimed, " By jingo, Butler or no 
Butler, here goes ! " — writing a few words and hand- 
ing them to the old man. The confidence created 
by Mr. Lincoln's words broke down when he read — 
" Job Smith is not to be shot until further orders 
from me.— ^-Abraham Lincoln." 

"Why," said the old man, " I thought it was to 
be a pardon ; but you say, ' not to be shot till 
further orders,' and you may order him to be shot 
next week." Mr. Lincoln smiled at the old man's 
fears, and replied, "Well, my old friend, I see you 
are not very well acquainted with me. If your son 
never looks on death till further orders come from 



BY SCHUYLER COLFAX. 345 

me to shoot him, he will live to be a great deal 
older than Methuselah." 

When Mr. Lincoln came into the Presidency, he 
called into his Cabinet his two great rivals for the 
nomination at Chicago, as Secretary of State and as 
Secretary of Treasury. And as Mr. Evarts, in his 
Dartmouth oration on Mr. Chase, stated most justly, 
this very fact proved, beyond all question and con- 
troversy, that nature had fitted and marked Lincoln 
for a ruler among men ; that only accident had 
hedged his early life in Illinois in comparative ob- 
scurity. Undoubtedly Mr. Evarts but anticipated 
the impartial and unerring verdict of history when 
he added, that the presence of Seward and Chase, in 
the two great departments of State and Treasury, 
gave to the nation nearly every possible benefit that 
could have resulted from the Presidency of either ; 
and that neither of these two great political leaders 
would have made as good a minister under the ad- 
m.inistration of the other as they both did under the 
Presidency of Abraham Lincoln. 

In 1 86 1, Mr. Lincoln revised, corrected and ex- 
punged Mr. Seward's letter to Charles Francis 
Adams, our Minister to England, on the most im- 
portant foreign question of the war — belligerent 
rights — until he had very materially changed its tone, 
scope and character. The venerable Truman Smith 
once told me that, after examining at the State De- 



346 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

partment the original draft of this most important 
foreign state paper, in the well-known handwriting 
of Mr. Seward, and the changes, corrections and in- 
terlineations in the well-known handwriting of Lin- 
coln, he believed that but for the cautious and pru- 
dential changes by Mr. Lincoln, that document, as 
first written, would have involved us in serious diffi- 
culties with Great Britain. Yet, when, the next year 
after, all the Republican Senators but one asked, 
throuo-h Tudee Collamer, that he should change this 
very Secretary of State, he indignantly refused to 
allow any dictation as to the persojtnel of his admin- 
istration. 

When the nation was all aflame for reprisals 
against Great Britain, you remember how he calmed 
it down with the reply, " One war at a time ! " And 
thus to people and to parties, to Senators and to 
Cabinets, he proved himself, unmistakably, President 
in fact, as well as President in title. 

Critics have arraigned Mr. Lincoln for lack of 
dignity ; and he used to acknowledge, in reply, that 
he had never enjoyed a quarter's education in any 
dignity school whatever. While his Western train- 
ing, so full as it had been of independent individual- 
ity, appeared to make the requirements of etiquette 
always chafe and gall him, you can imagine how 
astonished was Lord Lyons, the stately British Min- 
ister, when he presented the autograph letter from 



BY SCHUYLER COLFAX. 347 

Queen Victoria, announcing, as is the custom with 
European monarchies, the marriage of the Prince of 
Wales, and adding that whatever response the Presi- 
dent would make he would immediately transmit to 
his royal mistress. Mr. Lincoln responded instantly, 
by shaking the marriage announcement at the bache- 
lor minister before him, saying, " Lyons, go thou and 
do likewise." 

As the figure of this man, raised up, as I sincerely 
hope,for our great national exigency, recedes and rises 
into history, we see, more and more clearly, the grand- 
eur of its proportions. Conspicuous among the ele- 
ments of his character was unflinching, persistent, in- 
flexible adherence to right, without shadow of turning. 
Forgiving all things present, he only hated wrong to 
man. Closely akin to this was his conscience, to which 
test he brought all things ; by which he was always 
ruled and Inspired. From his mental crucible, came 
no dross nor slag, but only the pure, sterling gold of 
principle. And with his principles thus anchored, 
his utterances were always at par. The strong man 
and the water, says the old proverb, channel their 
own paths, and, I may add, often channel the path- 
way for others. Without the bold, Impassionate elo- 
quence of a Lovejoy, or the ripe classicism of an 
Evarts, or the ornate rhetoric of many others, he was 
the superior of them all In clear, logical, cogent state- 
ment of Issues, and of the principles by which these 



34^ REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

issues were defended and maintained. As was Paul 
among the disciples, he seemed the master logician 
among them all. As Lincoln stated these issues, so 
simply and yet so tersely and forcibly, they seemed 
to carry conviction with them without further argu- 
ment, and he proved himself pre-eminently of all 
American speakers the master of political debate. 

Was it possible to define more aptly and more 
sharply and forcibly his opposition to what was called 
squatter sovereignty than in the remarkably con- 
densed statement in his Peoria speech of 1854? No 
politician, no statesman, no master of logic in the 
world could answer him. "When the white man 
governs himself," said he, " that, I acknowledge, is 
unquestionably self-government ; but when the white 
man governs himself and governs another man be- 
sides, that is totally different from self-government, 
and that I call despotism." 

How clearly he settled the ever-recurring conflict 
between capital and labor in these memorable words : 
" Labor was prior to capital, but property is the fruit 
of labor. Let no man, therefore, who is houseless, 
pull down the house of another, but let him labor 
diligently to build one for himself, thus assuring that 
his own shall be safe from violence when built." 

How he clove every word of the sophistries by 
which slavery was defended when he said, in his 
Cooper Institute speech, " If slavery is right, all 



BY SCHUYLER COLFAX. 349 

laws and institutions against it are then wrong, and 
should be silenced and swept away. If it is right, we 
cannot justly object to its nationality and univer- 
sality; but if it is wrong, we cannot justly insist upon 
its extension and enlargement." 

SCHUYLER COLFAX. 



XIX. 

Daniel W. Voorhees. 

WHEN I was a member of the House of Rep- 
resentatives, during the war, there lived in 
the county of Owen, in my Congressional District, a 
gentleman by the name of Bullitt, related to the well- 
known family of that name in Kentucky. His wife 
was a refined, cultivated, and very attractive woman. 
They were in moderate circumstances, but, in my 
travels and labors in their vicinity, I often partook 
of their warm and genial hospitality. Their friend- 
ship for me was constant and devoted, and I was 
strongly attached to them. 

One gloomy, dark afternoon in the winter of 
1863-4, while seated at my desk in the House, I 
received Mr. Bullitt's card, saying he was at the east 
door and wished to see me immediately. It was 
almost a year since I had met him, and I at once 
felt, I know not why, an ominous dread that some 
calamity had overtaken him. The moment I ap- 
proached him, this presentiment became a certainty. 
His wife was standing by his side, with a look of 



352 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

terror and anguish, which, once seen, could never be 
forgotten. Her face was white, her lips apart, and 
her eyes filled with an expression of intense fright, 
and at the same time, intense supplication against 
some impending and appalling disaster. They had 
come direct from the depot to the Capitol, and were 
travel-stained and without rest. We sought the 
shelter of a committee room, and there I heard from 
Mr. Bullitt, aided now and then in eager but sup- 
pressed tones by his wife, the cause of their hurried 
trip to Washington and of their deadly alarm. 

Mrs. Bullitt's father was the Rev. Henry M. Luck- 
ett, a Methodist minister, then over seventy years of 
age. He had preached during his long life in Illi- 
nois, Kentucky, Missouri and elsewhere. At the 
time the rebellion broke out he was living at St. 
Charles, Missouri, and had saved up quite a compe- 
tence for his old age. It happened that his means 
were so invested and situated that everything he had 
in the world was suddenly lost to him. The blow 
prostrated him. He was not physically strong, at 
best, and being of an excitable temperament, his 
nervous system became greatly impaired, and finally 
broke down. His mind and spirits partook of his 
general depression, and he took a very morbid view 
of his condition and of his future. He was exceed- 
ingly sensitive about being dependent on any one 
for support, and soon drifted into the gloomy belief 



BV DANIEL W. VOORHEES. 353 

that he would become a pauper and die a pubHc 
charge. These ideas were combated by his family 
and friends, but they deepened their hold on him 
until he was really a monomaniac on that subject, 
although sound on all others. In this condition he 
visited a niece at Memphis, then in possession of the 
Federal forces under command of General Hurlbut. 
His excited and unguarded talk on the subject of his 
losses and his great anxiety to repair them, if possi- 
ble, soon attracted the attention of certain vigilant 
detectives in the employ of the government. This 
old man, shattered in health and unbalanced in mind, 
was not a difficult subject for their tact and skill. 
They found he was a Southern man by birth, and 
that he sympathized with the trials and sufferings of 
the Southern people. They assured him that the 
Southern people were at that time in the most ur- 
gent need of quinine and of percussion caps, and 
would pay fabulous prices for them ; that there was 
no difficulty in trading through the lines ; that they 
would put up the necessary amount of money, go 
into the enterprise with him, and make a large sum 
in the way of profits. This alluring scheme was 
successful in capturing its intended victim. The 
contraband articles were procured, a wagon with a 
false bottom was furnished to carry them to the 
enemy, and when all the details of the plot were 

ready, Mr. Luckett was arrested by his accomplices, 
23 



354 EEMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

loaded with irons, and speedily tried and condemned 
by a military court. 

At this stage of the narrative, which I have given 
in substance, we paused, and for a few moments 
looked at each other in silence. 

" He is to be shot to-morrow," said Mr. Bullitt, 
while his wife shivered as with a chill. " We have 
come," he continued, his eyes filling with tears, 
"knowing you will help us if you can. We don't 
know what else to do, nor whether, in fact, you can 
do anything. Before leaving home we got some 
papers signed by those who know Father Luckett 
and know his condition." 

With this he handed me several written state- 
ments, hurriedly gotten up, but which corroborated 
his own just made to me. It was then four o'clock, 
and in less than forty-eight hours this man was to 
die, and I felt that the volley of death poured into 
his breast would hardly be more fatal to him than to 
his devoted daughter. I thought rapidly, and yet 
for some minutes I could strike no plan in my own 
mind which promised success. There was no time 
for formal application to the War Department for 
mitigation of the sentence, and if there had been, I 
knew not where to make it : Stanton was Secretary 
of War. 

I saw from the first that Mr. Lincoln himself was 
our only hope. I knew him well. During the first 



BV DANIEL W. VOORHEES. 355 

eight years of my practice in the courts I met him 
very often and in all kinds of litigation. In all his 
intercourse with me, both before and after he be- 
came President, he was very courteous and kind, 
and yet, in a matter so grave as the one in hand, I 
doubted and hesitated as to the best method of ap- 
proaching him. It was a period of great distrust ; 
the very air was full of it, and the offense committed 
by Mr. Luckett was of the highest character and 
called for the penalty of death, unless his mental 
condition and the conduct of the detectives made the 
exercise of clemency proper and necessary. At that 
time the Senators from Indiana were Henry S. Lane 
and Thomas A. Hendricks. I had known Colonel 
Lane from my boyhood ; had studied law in his 
office, and entertained for him a warm and enduring 
friendship. He was, indeed, a charming man to me, 
and upon finding myself his colleague in Congress, 
he in the Senate and I in the House, I had always 
gone to him for assistance, and never in vain, in all 
matters not of a political character. I knew his re- 
lations with Mr. Lincoln were excellent, and I de- 
termined to ask his aid in behalf of the unfortunate 
old man doomed so soon to die. I sought him at 
once at the Senate Chamber, and finding that body 
adjourned, I went to the National Hotel, where 
Colonel Lane lived. I met him as he was going to 
dinner, and begged him to allow me a few moments. 



356 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

He did so, and listened until I hurriedly and imper- 
fectly outlined the offense for which Tvlr. Luckett 
was sentenced to death. For the first and only 
time in his life, Colonel Lane replied to me im- 
patiently and in a tone of some asperity : 

" If the man," he exclaimed, " has been supplying 
the rebels with ammunition and quinine, I would 
not interfere to save his life if he were m.y own 
brother." 

I commenced to answer with the circumstances 
which mitigated the offense, but observing his irri- 
tated look, I desisted, and bidding him good even- 
ing, withdrew. 

I called immediately on Mr. Hendricks. I had in- 
tended to ask him to go with Colonel Lane to the 
President ; now I was compelled to ask him to go 
without his colleague. He had but recently entered 
the Senate, knew Mr. Lincoln but slightly, and was 
a pronounced Democrat ; yet his high ability, per- 
fect integrity and courteous bearing had already 
given him great weight. He responded warmly, and 
without a moment's hesitation, to my appeal. Agree- 
ing upon the hour next morning when a carriage 
should call for him, I next turned my steps toward 
the lodeines of Colonel William R. Morrison, then, 
as now, a member of the House from Illinois. I 
wanted some one of the Illinois delegation to assist 
me, and I knew Mr. Lincoln held Colonel Morrison 



BV DANIEL W. VOORHEES. 357 

in very high estimation as a man of sincerity, cour- 
age, and ability. Upon reaching his room, he de- 
cided with characteristic promptitude and manHness 
to be one of the party to call on the President on 
the proposed errand of mercy. Then, having laid 
my plans as well as I could, and feeling I could do 
no more that night, I went wearily back toward my 
own quarters. 

For some cause which I do not now remember, I 
stopped for a few moments in the ofihce of the Met- 
ropolitan Hotel. It must have been eight or nine 
o'clock, and quite a large crowd was there. In the 
midst of the throng I observed, with surprise. Col- 
onel Lane moving about as if in quest of some one. 
Directly he saw me, and approaching said : 

" I have been looking for you. I mentioned the 
case you spoke of to Mrs. Lane at dinner, and I 
have been thinking of it since. I don't feel satis- 
fied ; come with me to my room, and we will talk it 
over." 

When we reached his room he took the papers I 
had in my possession, read them with care, made 
some severe comments on detectives inducing weak 
and infirm people to commit crime, and reached a 
very decided conclusion that this was not a proper 
case for the death penalty to be inflicted. 

At ten o'clock the next morning two carriages, in 
a heavy rain, drove up to the White House with a 



358 REMINISCEh'CES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

party of six, consisting of Senators Lane and Hen- 
dricks, Colonel Morrison, Mr. and Mrs. Bullitt and 
myself. Before starting, and on the way, I sought 
to reassure Mrs. Bullitt by telling her that Mr. Lin- 
coln was a plain, kind man ; that she could talk to 
him without dread or awe, and that I wished her to 
do so in her own way, about her father, as soon as 
she could get a chance. Of course she was suffering 
great distress and agitation, but her self-control, 
under the circumstances, was admirable. 

We ascended the stairs and filed into the Presi- 
dent's room. As we entered, I saw at a glance that 
Mr. Lincoln had that sad, preoccupied, far-away look 
I had so often seen him wear, and during which it 
was difficult at times to engage his attention to pass- 
ing events. As we approached he slowly turned to 
us, inclined his head and spoke. Senator Lane at 
once, in his rapid, nervous style, explained the occa- 
sion of our call, and made known our reasons for 
asking Executive clemency. While he was talking 
Mr. Lincoln looked at him in a patient, tired sort of 
way, but not as if he was struck with the sensibilities 
of the subject as we were. When the Senator ceased 
speaking there was no immediate response ; on the 
contrary, rather an awkward pause. My heart beat 
fast, for in that pause was now my great hope, and I 
was not disappointed. Mrs. Bullitt had taken a seat 
on coming in not far from the President, and now, in 



BY DANIEL W. VOORHEES. 359 

quivering but distinct tones, she spoke, addressing 
him as " Mr. Lincoln." He turned to her with a 
grave, benignant expression, and as he listened his 
eye lost that distant look, and his face grew animated 
with a keen and vivid interest. The little pale-faced 
woman at his side talked wonderfully well for her 
father's life, and her eyes pleaded even more elo- 
quently than her tongue. Suddenly, and while she 
was talking, Mr. Lincoln, turning to Senator Lane, 
exclaimed : 

" Lane, what did you say this man's name was ?" 

" Luckett," answered the Senator. 

"Not Henry M. Luckett?" quickly queried the 
President. 

" Yes," interposed Mrs. Bullitt ; " my father's 
name is Henry M. Luckett." 

" Why, he preached in Springfield years ago, 
didn't he?" said Mr. Lincoln, now all animation and 
interest. 

" Yes, my father used to preach in Springfield," 
replied the daughter. 

" Well, this is wonderful ! " Mr. Lincoln remarked ; 
and turning to the party in front of him he continued : 
" I knew this man well ; I have heard him preach ; 
he was a tall, angular man like I am, and I have been 
mistaken for him on the streets. Did you say he 
was to be shot day after to-morrow ? No, no ! 
There will be no shooting nor hanging in this case. 



360 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Henry M. Luckett ! There must be something 
wrong with him, or he wouldn't be in such a scrape 
as this. I don't know what more I can do for him, 
but you can rest assured, my child," turning to Mrs. 
Bullitt, "that your father's life is safe." 

He touched a bell on his table, and the telegraph 
operator appeared from an adjoining room. To him 
Mr. Lincoln dictated a dispatch to General Hurlbut, 
directing him to suspend the execution of Henry M. 
Luckett and await further orders in the case. 

As we thanked him and took our leave, he re- 
peated, as if to himself : 

" Henry M. Luckett ! No, no ! There is no 
shooting or hanging in this case." 

With what feelings we all left his presence ; how 
the woman's heart bore its great flood of joy and its 
sudden revulsion from the depths of fear and de- 
spair ; how she sobbed and laughed, and how tears 
and smiles were in her bright face together ; how in 
broken words and choking voice, she tried to pour 
out her unutterable gratitude to Abraham Lincoln ; 
how some of the party returning in the same car- 
riage with her and her husband were almost as 
deeply moved as she was ; how all these things and 
others occurred in the swift transition from deep dis- 
tress and overwhelming dread to happiness and se- 
curity, cannot now be told. Perhaps they were 
recorded at the time somewhere else. 



£V DANIEL IV. VOORHEES. 36 1 

Two or three months later, the object of all our 
solicitude and labors was released and sent North to 
his friends. I saw him but once. The first use he 
made of his liberty was to travel, poor as he was, to 
Washington to express his gratitude for his preser- 
vation from a violent and ignominious death. He 
called me from my seat in the House, and I met 
him exactly where I had met those who came to inter- 
cede for his life a little while before. He was a tall, 
spare old man, with an excited, startled, haunted ex- 
pression of face. He wanted to call and thank the 
President in person for his great kindness, but the 
circumstances at the time were not favorable to such 
a call and it was not made. He remained with me 
not more than fifteen minutes, and then in the hur- 
ried manner of one who has much to do and whose 
time is short, he moved away, and I saw him no 
more. 

The incident I have related occurred twenty-one 
years ago, and of the nine actors mentioned in it, 
but three remain to mingle In the affairs of life. 
Mr. Luckett soon slept with his fathers, and, sad to 
realize, he has been followed to the grave by his 
faithful-hearted daughter and her kind and generous 
husband. General Hurlbut died in a foreign land, 
while in the diplomatic service of his government. 
Henry S. Lane, full of years and of honors, rests 
from the labors of earth in the midst of the people 



^62 REiMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 

who knew and loved him from the earhest to the 
latest days of his manhood. 

Lincoln, in the hour of his greatest glory, in the 
very zenith of his success and fame, was transferred, 
as it were, in tlie twinkling of an eye, by red-handed 
murder, to the immortal pages of never-ending his- 
tory. How the memory of his kind acts, his gentle 
deeds of charity and of mercy, plead against the 
deep damnation of his taking off. 

Governor Hendricks, as we in Indiana always 
style him, is the beloved and honored Vice-Presi- 
dent of the United States. Colonel Morrison re- 
mains one of the strong, controlling men of the 
House; and I live to rescue, from the fast-gathering 
mists of the past, the history of this very informal, 
but at the same time very touching and characteris- 
tic act of Executive clemency. 

DANIEL W. VOORHEES. 



XX. 

Charles A. Dana- 

THE first time I saw Mr. Lincoln was shortly 
after his inauguration. He had appointed Mr. 
Seward to be his Secretary of State, and some of the 
Republican leaders of New York, who had been in- 
strumental in preventing Mr. Seward's nomination 
to the Presidency and in securing that of Mr. Lin- 
coln, had begun to fear that they would be left out 
in the cold in the distribution of the offices. General 
James S. Wadsworth, George Opdyke, Lucius Rob- 
inson, T. B. Carroll, and Henry B. Stanton were 
among the number of these gentlemen. Their appre- 
hensions were somewhat mitigated by the fact that 
Mr. Chase, to whom we were all friendly, was Secre- 
tary of the Treasury. But, notwithstanding, they 
were afraid that the superior tact and pertinacity of 
Mr. Seward and Mr. Weed would get the upper hand, 
and that the power of the Federal Administration 
would be put into the control of the rival faction. 
Accordingly, several of them determined to go to 
Washington, and I was asked to go with them. 
I believe the appointment for our interview with 



364 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

the President was made through Mr. Chase ; but at 
any rate we all went up to the White House together, 
except Mr. Stanton, who stayed away because he was 
himself an applicant for office. 

Mr. Lincoln received us in the large room up-stairs 
in the east wing of the White House, where the Pres- 
ident had his working office, and stood up while 
General Wadsworth, who was our principal spokes- 
man, and Mr. Opdyke, stated what was desired. 
After the interview was begun a big Indianian, who 
was a messenorer in attendance in the White House, 
came into the room and said to the President : 

" She wants you." 

" Yes, yes," said Mr. Lincoln without stirring. 

Soon afterward the messenger returned again, ex- 
claiming : 

" I say she wants you !" 

The President was evidently annoyed, but instead 
of going out after the messenger he remarked to us : 

" One side shall not gobble up everything. Make 
out a list of the places and men you want, and I will 
endeavor to apply the rule of give and take." 

General Wadsworth answered : 

" Our party will not be able to remain in Wash- 
ineton, but we will leave such a list with Mr. Carroll, 
and whatever he agrees to will be agreeable to us." 

Mr. Lincoln continued, " Let Mr. Carroll come in 
to-morrow and we will see what can be done." 



BY CHARLES A. DANA. ^65 

This is the substance of the interview, and what 
most impressed me was the evident fairness of the 
President. We all felt that he meant to do what was 
right and square in the matter. While he was not 
the man to promote factious quarrels and difficulties 
within his party, he did not intend to leave in the 
lurch the friends through whose exertions his nomi- 
nation and election had finally been brought about. 
At the same time he understood perfectly that we 
and our associates in the Republican body had not 
gone to Chicago for the purpose of nominating him, 
or of nominating any one in particular, but only to 
beat Mr. Seward, and to do the best that could be 
done as regards the selection of the candidate. 

Two years later I entered the service of the War 
Department, and from that time until the close of 
the rebellion I had constant opportunities of seeing 
Mr. Lincoln and of conversing" with him in the 
cordial and unofficial manner which he always pre- 
ferred. Not that there was ever any lack of dignity 
in the man. Even in his freest moments one al- 
ways felt the presence of a will and an intellectual 
power which maintained the ascendency of the Pres- 
ident. He never posed or put on airs or attempted 
to make any particular impression ; but he was al- 
ways conscious of his own ideas and purposes, even 
in his most unreserved moments. 

In one of the interesting passages which occurred 



^66 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

during this period, I was not myself either a prin- 
cipal actor or a personal witness, but I knew all 
about It. 

My friend and colleague, the Hon. Peter H. Wat- 
son, who was the earliest Assistant Secretary of War 
appointed by Mr. Stanton, had caught some quarter- 
masters in extensive frauds in forage furnished to the 
Army of the Potomac. The mode of the fraud con- 
sisted in a dishonest mixture of oats and Indian corn 
for the horses and mules of the army. By changing 
the proportions of the two sorts of grain, they were 
able to make a great difference in the cost of the 
bushel, and it was quite difficult to detect the cheat. 
However, Watson found it out and at once arrested 
the two officers who were most directly involved. 
They soon surrendered a large sum of money. If 
my memory serves me correctly, they returned 
$175,000 from the product of the swindle. They 
were men of some political importance about Lycom- 
ing, and eminent politicians took a hand in getting 
them out of the scrape. Among these the Hon. 
David Wilmot, then Senator of the United States 
and author of the famous Wilmot Proviso, was very 
active. He went to Mr. Lincoln and made such 
representations and appeals that finally the Presi- 
dent consented to go with him over to the War De- 
partment and see Watson In his office. Wilmot re- 
mained outside, and Mr. Lincoln went in to labor 



BY CHARLES A. DANA. 367 

with the Assistant Secretary. Watson eloquently 
described to him the nature of the fraud and the ex- 
tent to which it had already been developed by his 
partial investigation. The fact that $175,000 had 
been refunded by the guilty men was dwelt upon, 
and when the President urged the safety of the cause 
and the necessity of preserving united the powerful 
support which Pennsylvania was giving to the Ad- 
ministration in suppressing the rebellion, Watson 
answered : 

" Very well, Mr. President, if you wish to have 
these men released, all that is necessary is to give 
the order ; but I shall ask to have it in writing. In 
such a case as this it would not be safe for me to 
obey a verbal order ; and let me add that, if you do 
release them, the fact and the reason will necessarily 
become known to the public." 

Finally Mr. Lincoln took up his hat and went 
out, and when Wilmot, who was waiting in the cor- 
ridor, met him, he said : 

" I can't do anything with Watson ; he won't re- 
lease them." 

The reply which the Senator made to this remark 
cannot be printed here, but it did not affect the 
judgment of the President. The men were retained 
for a long time afterward. The fraud was fully in- 
vestigated, and future swindles of the kind were 
rendered impossible. If Watson could have had his 



368 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOIN 

way, the guilty parties — and there were some whose 
names never got to the public — would have been 
tried by court-martial and sternly dealt with. But 
all my reflections upon the subject since lead me to 
the conclusion that the moderation of the President 
was wiser than the unrelenting justice of the As- 
sistant Secretary would have been. 

Another incident connected with Pennsylvania re- 
curs to my memory which interested me greatly at 
that time as showing the habitual breadth of Mr. 
Lincoln's judgment and action. 

In the spring of 1864 some question arose about 
affairs in that State, and, Mr. Stanton being absent, 
Mr. Lincoln sent for me. I found Mr. Seward with 
him in the President's room. Mr. Lincoln entered 
at once upon the subject, and Mr. Seward said, "My 
advice is to send for Aleck McClure." After a few 
words between them on the subject, and the reiter- 
ated expression of Mr. Seward's opinion, Mr. Lin- 
coln said, " We will do it," and asked Mr. Seward 
to forward the necessary telegram. Then he turned 
to me, "What do you say, Dana?" "Well, sir," I 
replied, " McClure is very good, but I would sug- 
gest that it would be well to send for Wayne Mac- 
Veagh also." Mr. Seward thought this would not 
be necessary, and I took my leave with the impres- 
sion that my advice was not to be heeded. Next 
morning, however, MacVeagh came into my office. 



BV CHARLES A. DANA. 369 

"Did Mr. Lincoln send for you ? " I asked. "Yes, 
he did," was the answer, " and I think it will be all 
right ; " and so it was. The cause of anxiety proved 
to be more than half imaginary. 

The relations between Mr. Lincoln and the mem- 
bers of his Cabinet were always friendly and sincere 
on his part. He treated every one of them with un- 
varying kindness ; but though several of them were 
men of extraordinary force and self-assertion — this is 
true especially of Mr. Seward, Mr. Chase, and Mr. 
Stanton — and though there was nothing of selfhood 
or domination in his manner toward them, it was 
always plain that he was the master and they the 
subordinates. They constantly had to yield to his 
will, and if he ever yielded to theirs it was because 
they convinced him that the course they advised was 
judicious and appropriate. I fancied during the 
whole time of my intimate intercourse with him and 
with them that he was always prepared to receive the 
resignation of any one of them ; and at the same 
time I do not recollect a single occasion when either 
of the members of the Cabinet had got his mind ready 
to quit his post from any feeling of dissatisfaction 
with the orders or the conduct of the President. 

In the beginning of May, Grant moved the Army 
of the Potomac across the Rappahannock and fought 
the battle of the Wilderness. For two days we had 

no authentic news in Washington, and both Mr. 

24 



370 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Lincoln and the Secretary of War were very much 
troubled about it. One night at about ten o'clock I 
was sent for to the War Department, and on reaching 
the of^ce I found the President and the Secretary 
together. 

" We are greatly disturbed in mind," said Mr. 
Lincoln, "because Grant has been fighting two days 
and we are not getting any authentic account of what 
has happened since he moved. We have concluded 
to send you down there. How soon will you be 
ready to start ? " 

" I will be ready," I said, " in half an hour, and will 
get off just as soon as a train and an escort can be 
got ready at Alexandria." 

"Very good," said the President; "go then, and 
God bless you." 

I at once made the necessary preparations and gave 
orders for a train from Alexandria to the Rappahan- 
nock. At the appointed time, just before midnight, 
I was on board the cars in Maryland Avenue, which 
were to take me and my horse to Alexandria, when 
an orderly rode up in haste to say that the President 
wanted to see me at the War Department. Riding 
there as fast as I could I found the President still 
there. 

" Since you went away," said he, " I have been 
feeling very unhappy about it. I don't like to send 
you down there. We hear that Jeb Stewart's cavalry 



BV CHARLES A. DANA. 37 1 

is riding all over the region between the Rappahan- 
nock and the Rapidan, and I don't want to expose 
you to the danger you will have to meet before you 
can reach Grant." 

"Mr. Lincoln," I said, "I have got a first-rate 
horse, and twenty cavalrymen are in readiness at 
Alexandria. If we meet a small force of Stewart's 
people, we can fight, and if they are too many, they 
will have to have mighty good horses to catch us." 

"But are you not concerned about it at all?" 
said he. 

"No, sir," said I, "don't feel any hesitation on 
my account. Besides it is getting late, and I want 
to get down to the Rappahannock by daylight." 

" All right," said he ; " if you feel that way, I won't 
keep you any longer. Good-night, and good-by." 

Another side of this remarkable character was 
illustrated on the evening of election day in Novem- 
ber. The political struggle had been most intense, 
and the interest taken in it, both in the White House 
and in the War Department, had been almost pain- 
ful. All the power and influence of the War De- 
partment, then something enormous from the vast 
expenditure and extensive relations of the war, had 
been employed to secure the re-election of Mr. 
Lincoln ; and after the arduous toil of the canvass 
there was necessarily a great suspense of feeling 
until the result of the voting should be ascertained 



372 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

I went over to the War Department about half-past 
eight in the evening and found the President and 
Mr. Stanton together in the Secretary's office. 
General Eckert, who then had charge of the tele- 
graph department of the War Office, was coming in 
continually with telegrams containing election re- 
turns. Mr. Stanton would read them and the 
President would look at them and comment upon 
them. Presently there came a lull in the returns, 
and Mr. Lincoln called me up to a place by his side. 

" Dana," said he, " have you ever read any of the 
writings of Petroleum V. Nasby ? " "No, sir," I 
said, " I have only looked at some of them, and they 
seemed to me quite funny." 

"Well," said he, "let me read you a specimen," 
and, pulling out a thin yellow-covered pamphlet from 
his breast-pocket, he began to read aloud. Mr. 
Stanton viewed this proceeding with great im- 
patience, as I could see, but Mr. Lincoln paid no 
attention to that. He would read a page or a story, 
pause to con a new election telegram, and then open 
the book again and go ahead with a new passage. 
Finally Mr. Chase came in and presently Mr. White- 
law Reid, and then the reading was interrupted. 
Mr. Stanton went to the door and beckoned me into 
the next room. I shall never forget the fire of his 
indignation at what seemed to him to be mere 
nonsense. The idea that when the safety of the 



BY CHARLES A. DANA. 373 

Republic was thus at issue, when the control of an 
empire was to be determined by a few figures brought 
in by the telegraph, the leader, the man most deeply 
concerned, not merely for himself but for his country, 
could turn aside to read such balderdash and to laugh 
at such frivolous jests, was to his mind something 
most repugnant and damnable. He could not un- 
derstand, apparently, that it was by the relief which 
these jests afforded to the strain of mind under 
which Lincoln had so long been living and to the 
natural gloom of a melancholy and desponding tem- 
perament — this was Mr. Lincoln's prevailing charac- 
teristic — that the safety and sanity of his intelligence 
was maintained and preserved. 

Another interesting incident occurs to me. A spy 
whom we employed to report to us the proceedings 
of the Confederate Government and its agents, and 
who passed continually between Richmond and St. 
Catherines, reporting at the War Department upon 
the way, had come in from Canada and had put into 
my hands an important dispatch from Mr, Clement 
C. Clay, Jr., addressed to Mr. Benjamin. Of course 
the seal was broken and the paper read immediately. 
It showed unequivocally that the Confederate agents 
in Canada were making use of that country as a 
starting point for warlike raids which were to be 
directed against frontier towns like St. Albans in 
Vermont. Mr. Stanton thought it important that 



374 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM IINCOLN 

this dispatch should be retained as a ground of re- 
clamation to be addressed to the British Govern- 
ment. It was on a Sunday that it arrived, and he 
was confined to his house by a cold. At his direc- 
tions I went over to the President and made an 
appointment with him to be at the Secretary's office 
after church. At the appointed time he was there, 
and I read the dispatch to them. Mr. Stanton 
stated the reasons why it should be retained, and 
before deciding the question Mr. Lincoln turned to 
me, saying : 

"Well, Dana?" 

I observed to them that this was a very important 
channel of communication, and that if we stopped 
such a dispatch as this it was at the risk of never ob- 
taining any more information through that means, 

" Oh," said the President, " I think you can man- 
age that. Capture the messenger, take the dispatch 
from him by force, put him in prison, and then let 
him escape. If he has made Benjamin and Clay be- 
lieve his lies so far, he won't have any difficulty in 
telling them new ones that will answer for this case." 

This direction was obeyed. The paper was sealed 
up again and was delivered to its bearer. General 
Augur, who commanded the District, was directed to 
look for a Confederate messenger at such a place on 
the road south that evening. The man was arrested, 
brought to the War Department, searched, the paper 



BY CHARLES A. DANA. 375 

found upon him and identified, and he was committed 
to the Old Capitol Prison. He made his escape 
about a week later, being fired upon by the guard. 
A large reward for his capture was advertised in va- 
rious papers East and West, and when he reached 
St. Catherines with his arm in a sling, wounded by a 
bullet which had passed through it, his story was be- 
lieved by Messrs. Clay and Jacob Thompson, or, at 
any rate, if they had any doubts upon the subject, 
they were not strong enough to prevent his carrying 
their messages afterward. 

The last time I saw Mr. Lincoln to speak with him 
was in the afternoon of the day of his murder. The 
same Jacob Thompson was the subject of our con- 
versation. I had received a report from the Provost 
Marshal of Portland, Maine, saying that Mr. Thomp- 
son was to be in that town that night for the purpose 
of taking the steamer for Liverpool ; and what orders 
had the Department to give ? I carried the telegram 
to Mr. Stanton. He said promptly, " Arrest him ; " 
but as I was leaving his room, he called me back, 
adding, "You had better take it over to the Presi- 
dent." It was now between four and five o'clock in 
the afternoon, and business at the White House was 
completed for the day. I found Mr. Lincoln with 
his coat off in a closet attached to his office washing 
his hands. " Halloo, Dana," said he, as I opened 
the door, "what is it now?" "Well, sir," I said, 



2)1^ REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

" here is the Provost Marshal of Portland, who re- 
ports that Jacob Thompson is to be in that town to- 
night, and inquires what orders we have to give." 
" What does Stanton say ? " he asked. " Arrest him," 
I replied. " Well," he continued, drawling his words, 
" I rather guess not. When you have an elephant 
on hand, and he wants to run away, better let him 
run. 

This answer I carried back to the War Depart- 
ment, and, accordingly, no reply was sent to the 
Provost Marshal. That night Mr. Lincoln was shot, 
and in the room adjoining the small chamber in which 
he lay unconscious and breathing heavily, Mr. Stan- 
ton, the only member of the Administration who 
seemed to retain his self-possession and undiminished 
energy, gave all the orders for hours that seemed 
necessary to carry on the government. I left him 
at about two o'clock in the morning and went home to 
sleep. But at five o'clock Colonel Pelouse knocked 
at my front door. Opening the window, I asked, 
" What is it ? " " Mr. Dana," said he, " Mr. Lincoln 
is dead, and Mr. Stanton directs you to arrest Jacob 
Thompson." 

The order was sent to Portland, but Thompson 
did not come there. Some years afterward he told 
me that he had thought it safer to go to England by 
way of Halifax. 

CHARLES A. DANA. 



XXI. 

John A. Kasson. 

PRIOR to Lincoln's election as President I never 
met him — not, indeed, until after he sent my 
name to the Senate for the post of First Assistant- 
Postmaster-General. I think this was the second 
nomination he sent to that body. Afterward I had 
frequent occasion to see him, both during the period 
of that service and during my subsequent congres- 
sional service, but almost wholly on official busi- 
ness. 

From the President's room in the White House 
you can see prominent objects in Alexandria, six 
miles down the Potomac. The one prominent object 
which then for days attracted and offended the 
patriot's eye from those windows, was the rebel flag 
floatine from the staff on the roof of the hotel in 
that city, as if in defiance of the national Capitol, a 
few miles away. President Lincoln's young neigh- 
bor of Springfield, III, Ellsworth, mounted alone to 
the roof, cut it down, and was himself killed by the 
rebel owner as he descended the staircase. I called 
on the President just after that occurrence, and con- 



378 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOIN 

gratulated him, as I stood by the window, on the im- 
proved view down the Potomac, where, instead of 
the Confederate, the Union flag now floated. I was 
taken aback by Mr. Lincoln's joyless response, "Yes, 
but it was at a terrible cost ! " and the tears rushed 
into his eyes as he said it. It was his first per- 
sonal realization of what the war meant. His 
tender respect for human life had received its first 
wound. It was not battle, it was assassination. 
He did not foresee the hundreds of thousands 
who were to fall before the great strife, would be 
ended. He afterward learned to bear the loss of 
thousands in battle more bravely than he bore the 
loss of this one in the beginning of the contest. 
But the loss of a single life, otherwise than in the 
ranged fight, was always hard for him, as so often 
shown In his action upon the judgments of courts- 
martial. 

Early in his first term there was a vacancy in the 
United States Supreme Court to be filled from the 
Western States. Among the candidates was a law- 
yer whom I knew, whose reputation for ability was 
locally well established, but who had no national 
reputation. The recommendations had been for 
many weeks on file, but no action taken. One day 
this gentleman came to me, said something was 
operating as a check on his nomination, and he was 
satisfied I could remove it if I would call on the 



BY JOHN N. KASSON. 379 

President. I went to the White House and called 
up the case. Mr. Lincoln said : " I never heard of 
this man before, unless it is , who had an elec- 
tion contest in Congress over the Mormon vote. Is 
that the man?" I answered him, "No. there is 
no common blood in their veins." I then described 
the character of the candidate, his history and the 
qualities which in my judgment fitted him especially 
for the high place to which he aspired. The hitch 
was in the President's supposition that an ordinary 
politician had been recommended for a high judicial 
place, and he could not approve such a proposition. 
In a few days the nomination went in and was con- 
firmed, and to-day, by the general judgment of the 
bar, the gentleman so appointed, if not in fact the 
brightest luminary on the bench, is unsurpassed in 
constitutional learning and in force of logic. His 
opinions rank with the best since the time of Mar- 
shall. This incident is worthy of mention, because it 
shows that in appointments of high importance Mr. 
Lincoln was careful and conscientious, although in 
the less important places he was too much inclined 
to oblige friends, and to trust to superficial assur- 
ances. 

Many smiles have been caused by President Lin- 
coln's quaint remark, in reply to some applicant for 
office, in which he said, " My dear sir, I have not 
much influence with this administration." An inci- 



380 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

dent of my intercourse with him illustrates the truth 
of his remark, and was followed by singular conse- 
quences. It was in the days — which heaven grant 
may come to a speedy end — when Congressmen were 
considered the necessary and inevitable agents for 
procuring offices, and even advancements, in the 
army. Numerous officers in the field had written 
to me to have Colonel , of the Iowa regi- 
ment, promoted to be a brigadier-general, and had 
intimated in one of their petitions that they would 
hold me responsible for a failure, and that soldiers 
were voters. The colonel deserved the promotion, 
but it was difficult to obtain. At last there came an 
Iowa resignation, and I went again to the President, 
who signed an order to the Secretary of War to let 

Colonel have the commission in place of the 

resigning brigadier. In a happy frame of mind I 
walked, with the order in my hand, to the War De- 
partment, to see the Secretary, Mr. Stanton, not 
doubting my success, as I had a command from the 
constitutional head of the army. My confidence was 
all the firmer because my absolute devotion to the 
Union cause, and my constant fidelity to the Repub- 
lican Party, were well known and universally recog- 
nized ; and my relations with all the members of the 
Cabinet were perfectly friendly. 

Mr. Stanton was seated on the sofa talking with a 
friend, and his immediate clerk was standing at a 



BY JOHN N. KASSON. 38 1 

neighboring desk, with his pen in hand. As I ad- 
vanced, taking off my hat, Mr. Stanton turned to 
me to hear what I had to say. I told him my errand, 
and handed him the President's order. He glanced 
at it, and said, in an angry tone, " I sha'n't do it, sir; 
I sha'n't do it ! " and passed the paper up to his 
clerk. Utterly amazed at his words, and indignant 
at his tone, I inquired why he refused to obey the 
President's order. " It isn't the way to do it, sir, 
and I sha'n't do it." I was going on to speak of the 
merits of the officer, and of the proceeding, my 
wrath rising, when he cut me off with, " I don't pro- 
pose to argue the question with you, sir ; I sha'n't do 
it." Utterly indignant, I turned to the clerk and 
asked to withdraw the paper. " Don't you let him 
have it, sir," said Stanton ; " don't let him have it." 
The clerk, whose hands were trembling like an East- 
ern slave before his pasha, withdrew the document 
which he was in the act of giving to me. I felt my 
indignation getting too strong for me, and putting 
on my hat and turning my back to the Secretary, I 
slowly went to the door, with set teeth, saying to 
myself, " As you will not hear me in your own forum, 
you shall hear from me in mine." 

A few days later, after recovering my coolness, I 
reported the affair to the President. A look of vex- 
ation came over his face, and he seemed unwilling 
then to talk of it, and desired me to see him another 



382 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

day. I did so, when he gave me a positive order 
for the promotion of the colonel to be a brigadier, 
and told me to take it over to the War Department. 
I replied that I could not speak again with Mr. 
Stanton till he apologized for his insulting manner 
to me on the previous occasion. " Oh," said the 
President, " Stanton has gone to Fortress Monroe, 
and Dana is acting. He will attend to it for you." 
This he said with a manner of relief, as if it was a 
piece of good luck to find a man there who would 
obey his orders. The nomination was sent to the 
Senate and confirmed. 

Very soon after this incident, I walked into the 
House from my committee-room one morning, and 
found Thaddeus Stevens on the floor defending 
Stanton on some question. My opportunity had 
come. I hurried to the clerk's desk to find the ques- 
tion under debate. It was a resolution for an in- 
vestigation of the inmates of the old Capitol prison, 
when it was charged upon the administration that 
many innocent men, including Unionists, were con- 
fined by arbitrary orders from the War Department, 
some of them for criticisms on the Secretary's action ; 
and not only without written charges against them, 
but with a refusal to let them know why they were 
arrested. Such action I knew to be abhorrent to 
Mr. Lincoln's sense of justice and equity, and that 
the sole responsibility was on the very able, but very 



BY JOHN N. KASSON. 383 

tyrannical, Secretary, in whose presence I had seen 
men and women tremble. As soon as Mr. Stevens 
had finished I sought the floor. I let loose my de- 
nunciations of his willful and arbitrary action, for 
which I denied the responsibility of President Lin- 
coln ; and, in support of the President, related an 
instance, in my personal experience, of his dis- 
obedience to his chief. In three minutes every 
newspaper and every pen in the House was laid 
aside, and everybody listening to what was equally 
an assault on the Secretary's conduct and a defense of 
the President. The vote was soon taken, and as I 
remember the figures, only six votes were given on 
the Secretary's side, to one hundred and twenty-five 
for the resolution. I think it was on the following 
night that a numerous and, it was said, a general gaol 
delivery was made ; and rumor had it that the men 
were carried away in carriages, under promise to 
make no further complaint. At all events, it was the 
end of the system of arbitrary and causeless arrests. 
Messaofes and letters from far and near came to me, 
with thanks for my arraignment of the Secretary's 
action, and giving instances which showed that there 
was, in Washington especially, a reign of moral terror 
of which I had no previous knowledge. The next 
time I saw Mr. Lincoln, I remember well his change 
of manner to me. He showed his gratification in his 
peculiar and familiar manner, by his twinkling eyes, 



384 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

and by his slapping me on the thigh, as I thought 
quite unnecessarily. His War Secretary was a very 
able man, and rendered enormous service to the 
Union ; he was very resolute, and often selfishly 
willful, and the President was somewhat in awe of 
his arbitrary character. While his patience was un- 
equaled among public men, Stanton had none at all. 
I cannot refrain from adding one incident con- 
nected, not with Lincoln living, but with Lincoln dead 
by a murderer's hand. I was on the way to my home 
in the heart of Iowa. As the car was leaving Daven- 
port, a friend jumped upon the platform while the 
train moved away, and said to me : " News has just 
come by telegraph that Lincoln is assassinated ! " " It 
can't be true ; it can't be true ; " was my response as 
the quickening speed forced my friend to leap to the 
ground. Hours of intense anxiety passed as station 
after station was touched and not a word more could 
be heard. From the railway I mounted the stage 
coach, for only Eastern Iowa then had the roads of 
iron. So, on and on through the darkness, still with- 
out news, until in the dead of night the stage stopped 
at the town of Newton to change horses. Here was a 
small telegraph office. I hurried to it. A little crowd 
of villaofers and workino^-men stood half dressed, 
many in shirt-sleeves, around the open window, listen- 
ing, with faces in which suppressed wrath and sorrow 
were mingled, to the click-click-click of the telegraph 



BY JOHN N. KASSON. ^85 

register. As the words were spelled out slowly, one 
after the other, the operator repeated them, rehears- 
ing with painful distinctness the assassin's shot, the 
leap on the stage floor, the falling head of the great 
patriot and martyr, the oozing wound, the escape of 
the guilty. It was the heart of the people throbbing 
with the pulsations of the passing vitality of their 
hero, in the deep darkness and silence of the night. 
Not a word was spoken ; there were only the gloomy 
eyes and the firm-set teeth. It is one of the tradi- 
tions of Iowa that on that night no "copperhead" 
went forth from his house, and that for days after- 
ward none ventured to open his mouth anywhere 
over the rolling prairies of our loyal State. The 
Union heart was too deeply wounded ; it was sullen 
and wrathful, and there was danger in the air. 

JOHN N. KASSON. 



25 



XXII. 

James B. Fry. 

ALTHOUGH I do not remember to have seen 
Lincoln until the day of his first inauguration 
as President, I knew him through my father. Pio- 
neers from Kentucky to Illinois, they were friends 
from an early period. Lincoln was a private in the 
volunteer forces commanded by my father in the 
Black Hawk War of 183 1-2. He was always a man 
of note among his associates, in the Indian campaign 
as well as in subsequent political campaigns, espe- 
cially in the contest with Douglas for the United 
States Senate. My father was an ardent personal 
and political friend of Douglas, and in his circle it 
was looked upon as presumptuous and ridiculous for 
Abe Lincoln to compete with the "Little Giant" for 
the Senate of the United States. 

The contest proved that the so-called rail-splitter 
was the real giant, and led to his selection for the 
head of the new party at Chicago in the summer of 
i860, and to his election to the Presidency in the 
following autumn. Lincoln and his Illinois compet- 
itor, Stephen A. Douglas, formed a striking contrast. 



388 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



Douglas was low in stature, rotund in figure, with a 
short neck, a big bullet-head, and a chubby face. 
His lips were forced into the fixed smile character- 
istic of the popular and well-satisfied public man 
of a period when political success depended largely 
upon what a man said, how he said it, and how he 
appeared in personal intercourse with the people ; 
and not, as now, much upon what newspapers say of 
him and for him. 

Lincoln was tall and thin ; his long bones were 
united by large joints, and he had a long neck and 
an angular face and head. Many likenesses repre- 
sent his face well enough, but none that I have ever 
seen do justice to the awkwardness and ungainliness 
of his figure. His feet, hanging loosely to his ankles, 
were prominent objects ; but his hands were more 
conspicuous even than his feet — due perhaps to the 
fact that ceremony at times compelled him to clothe 
them in white kid gloves, which always fitted loosely. 
Both in the height of conversation and in the depth 
of reflection his hand now and then ran over or 
supported his head, giving his hair habitually a dis- 
ordered aspect. I never saw him when he appeared 
to me otherwise than a great man, and a very ugly 
one. His expression in repose was sad and dull ; 
but his ever-recurring humor, at short intervals, 
flashed forth with the brilliancy of an electric light. 
I observed but two well-defined expressions in his 



BY JAMES B. FRY. 389 

countenance ; one, that of a pure, thoughtful, hon- 
est man, absorbed by a sense of duty and responsi- 
bihty ; the other, that of a humorist so full of fun 
that he could not keep it all in. His power of 
analysis was wonderful. He strengthened every case 
he stated, and no anecdote or joke ever lost force or 
effect from his telling. He invariably carried the 
listener with him to the very climax, and when that 
was reached in relating a humorous story, he laughed 
all over. His large mouth assumed an unexpected 
and comical shape, the skin on his nose gathered 
into wrinkles, and his small eyes, though partly 
closed, emitted infectious rays of fun. It was not 
only the aptness of his stories, but his way of telling 
them, and his own unfeigned enjoyment, that gave 
them zest, even among the gravest men and upon 
the most serious occasions. 

Nevertheless, Lincoln — a good listener — was not 
a good conversationalist. When he talked, he told 
a story or argued a case. But it should be remem- 
bered that during the entire four years of his Presi- 
dency, from the spring of 1861 until his death in 
April, 1865, civil war prevailed. It bore heaviest 
upon him, and his mind was bent daily, hourly even, 
upon the weighty matters of his high office ; so that, 
as he might have expressed it, he was either lifting 
with all his might at the butt-end of the log, or 
sitting upon it whittling, for rest and recreation. 



390 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Lincoln was as nearly master of himself as it is 
possible for a man clothed with great authority and 
engaged in the affairs of public life to become. He 
had no bad habits, and if he was not wholly free 
from the passions of human nature, it is quite cer- 
tain that passion but rarely if ever governed his ac- 
tion. If he deviated from the straight course of 
justice, it was usually from indulgence for the minor 
faults or weaknesses of his fellow-men. I observed 
but one cravinor that he could not overcome : that 
was for a second term of the Presidency. He was 
fully conscious of the grip this desire had upon him, 
and once said in the way of apology for it : 

"No man knows what that gnawing is till he has 
had it." / 

During the spring of 1861 I was in charge of the 
appointment branch of the Adjutant-General's De- 
partment, Upon one occasion, when I was at the 
White House in the course of duty, the President, 
after disposing of the matter in hand, said : 

"You are in charge of the appointment office. 
I have here a bushel-basketful of applications for 
offices in the army. I have tried to examine them 
all, but they have increased so rapidly that I have 
got behind and may have neglected some. I will 
send them all to your office. Overhaul them, lay 
those that require further action before the Secre- 
tary of War, and file the others." 



BY JAMES B. FRY. 39 1 

The bushel-basketful came, and the papers were 
overhauled. They were dotted with notes, com- 
ments, and queries by the President. One slip 
of paper — which I handed back to the President 
with the remark that I supposed he would not care 
to have it placed upon the official files — bore a 
memorandum in his own handwriting as follows : 

" On this day Mrs. called upon me. She is 

the wife of Major of the regular army. She 

wants her husband made a brigadier-general. She 
is a saucy little woman, and I think she will torment 
me till I have to do it. — A. L." 

It was not long before that little woman's hus- 
band was appointed a brigadier-general. 

At a later date I heard a conversation between 
Lincoln and Stanton in relation to the selection of 
brigadier-generals. The many applications and rec- 
ommendations were examined and discussed. Lin- 
coln finally said : 

" Well, Mr. Secretary, I concur in pretty much all 
you say. The only point I make is, that there has 
got to be something done that will be unquestion- 
ably in the interest of the Dutch, and to that end 
I want Schemmelfinnig appointed." 

The Secretary replied : 

" Mr. President, perhaps this Schemmel-what's-his- 
name is not as highly recommended as some other 
German officer." 



392 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

" No matter about that," said Lincoln, " his name 
will make up for any difference there may be, and 
I'll take the risk of his coming out all right." 

Then, with a laugh, he repeated, dwelling upon 
each syllable of the name, and accenting the last one, 
" Schem-mel-fin-;^?'^ must be appointed." 

There is no purpose here to question General 
Schemmelfinnig's merits. The only object is to 
show that Lincoln had reasons, in addition to Schem- 
melfinnig's recommendations, for appointing him 
brigadier-general. 

After I became Provost-Marshal-General of the 
United States — March, 1863 — the duty of enrolling 
and drafting the national forces required me to see 
a great deal of the President. 

Once when I went into his office at the White 
House, I found a private soldier making a complaint 
to him. It was a summer afternoon. Lincoln 
looked tired and careworn ; but he was listening 
as patiently as he could to the grievances of the 
obscure member of the military force known as 
" Scott's nine hundred," then stationed in Wash- 
ington. When I approached Lincoln's desk I heard 
him say : 

" Well, my man, that may all be so, but you must 
go to your officers about it." 

The man, however, presuming upon Lincoln's 
good-nature, and determined to make the most of 



BY JAMES B. FRY. 393 

his opportunity, persisted in re-telling his troubles 
and pleading for the President's interference. After 
listening to the same story two or three times as 
he gazed wearily through the south window of his 
office upon the broad Potomac in the distance, Lin- 
coln turned upon the man, and said in a peremptory 
tone that ended the interview : 

"Now, my man, go away, go aiuay ! I cannot 
meddle in your case. I could as easily bail out the 
Potomac River with a teaspoon as attend to all the 
details of the army." 

The following is a good example of Lincoln's 
clearness and force in stating a case. It relates to 
the vexed question that prevailed in 1864-65 con- 
cerning the quota of troops to be furnished by the 
States. The Legislature of Rhode Island sent a 
committee to Washington to confer with the Presi- 
dent upon the subject of the number of men required 
from that State. The committee said in its report: 

"The President at this point interrupted the com- 
mittee to say that complaints from several States 
had already been made to the same effect, and in 
one instance the subject had been earnestly pressed 
to his attention, and that he had personally taken 
the pains to examine for himself the formula which 
the Provost-Marshal-General had adopted for the 
calculation and distribution of the quotas for the 
different States, and had arrived at the conclusion 



394 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

that it was impossible for any candid mind to doubt 
or question its entire fairness. In order that your 
committee might be fully possessed of his opinion 
upon this subject, the President read the following 
paper, the original of which had been forwarded to 
his Excellency the Governor of the State of Ver- 
mont : 

" * Executive Mansion, ] 
Washington, February 8, 1865. ) 

" ' Complaint is made to me by Vermont that the 
assignment of her quota for the draft on the im- 
pending call is intrinsically unjust, and also in bad 
faith of the government's promise to fairly allow 
credits for men previously furnished. 

"'To illustrate, a supposed case is stated as fol- 
lows : Vermont and New Hampshire must between 
them furnish six thousand (6,000) men on the pend- 
ing call ; and being equals, one must furnish as 
many as the other in the long-run. But the gov- 
ernment finds that on former calls Vermont fur- 
nished a surplus of five hundred (500), and New 
Hampshire a surplus of fifteen hundred (1,500). 
These two surpluses make 2,000, and added to the 
six thousand (6,000) make eight thousand (8,000) 
to be furnished by the two States ; or four thousand 
each, less fair credits. Then subtracting Ver- 
mont's surplus of five hundred (500) from her four 
thousand (4,000), leaves three thousand five hun- 



BY JAMES B. FRY. 395 

dred (3,500) as her quota on the pending call ; and 
likewise subtracting New Hampshire's surplus of 
fifteen hundred (1,500) from her four thousand 
(4,000), leaves two thousand five hundred (2,500) as 
her quota on the pending call. These three thou- 
sand five hundred (3,500) and two thousand five 
hundred (2,500) make precisely the six thousand 
(6,000) which the supposed case requires from the 
two States ; and it is just equal for Vermont to fur- 
nish one thousand (1,000) more now than New 
Hampshire, because New Hampshire has heretofore 
furnished one thousand (1,000) more than Vermont, 
which equalizes the burdens of the two in the long- 
run ; and this proceeding, so far from being bad 
faith to Vermont, is indispensable to keeping good 
faith with New Hampshire. By no other process 
can the six thousand (6,000) men be obtained from 
the two States, and at the same time deal justly and 
keep faith with both; and we do but confuse our- 
selves in questioning the operation by which the 
right result is reached. 

" ' The supposed case is perfect as an illustration. 

" * The pending call is not for three hundred thou- 
sand (300,000) men, subject to fair credits, but is for 
three hundred thousand (300,000) remaining after all 
fair credits have been deducted ; and it is impossible 
to concede what Vermont asks without coming out 
short of the three hundred thousand (300,000) men, 



396 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

or making other localities pay for the partiality 
shown her. This upon the case stated. If there be 
different reasons for making an allowance to Ver- 
mont, let them be presented and considered. 

(Signed) "'A. LINCOLN.'" 

This statement of the case by Lincoln was a con- 
clusive answer to both Vermont and Rhode Island. 

A story has long been current that Lincoln sent 
an applicant for office with a note to the Secretary 
of War, directing that a letter of appointment be 
prepared for the man to the office he sought ; that 
the applicant returned to the President and an- 
nounced that Stanton refused to obey the order ; 
that the President looked disappointed, but merely 
expressed his regret at the result, and remarked that 
he had not much influence with the administration. 
The anecdote has generally been interpreted as 
meaning that Lincoln could not control Stanton. 
The inference is erroneous. Lincoln, so far as I 
could discover, was in every respect the actual head 
of the administration, and whenever he chose to do 
so he controlled Stanton as well as all the other 
Cabinet ministers. 

I will cite one instance in relation to Stanton. 

After compulsory military service was resorted to. 
States and districts tried to fill their quotas, and save 
their own citizens from being drafted into the army, 
by voting bounties to buy men wherever they could 



BY JAMES B. FRY. 397 

be found. The agent appointed by a county in one 
of the Middle States, and supplied with bounty 
money, learned that some Confederate prisoners of 
war at Chicago were about to be released and en- 
listed in our army for service against the Indians in 
the North-west. The thrifty thought occurred to the 
agent to pay these prisoners a bounty for what they 
were going to do without any pay at all, and in re- 
turn for this payment have them credited as soldiers 
furnished by his county. Being an acquaintance of 
Lincoln, the agent obtained from him an order to 
have the men credited as desired. But the Secre- 
tary of War refused to have the credits allowed. In- 
dignant and disappointed, the agent returned to the 
President, who reiterated the order, but without 
effect. Then Lincoln went in person to Stanton's 
office, and I was called there by the latter to state 
the facts in the case. 

I reported to the two high officials, as I had pre- 
viously done to the Secretary alone, that these men 
already belonged to the United States, being pris- 
oners of war ; that they could not be used against 
the Confederates ; that they had no relation what- 
ever to the county to which it was proposed they 
should be credited; that all that was necessary toward 
enlisting them in our army for Indian service was 
the government's release of them as prisoners of 
war ; that to give them bounty and credit them to a 



398 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



O 



county which owed some of its own men for service 
against the Confederates would waste money and 
deprive the army operating against a powerful en- 
emy of that number of men, etc. 

Stanton said : 

" Now, Mr. President, those are the facts, and you 
must see that your order cannot be executed." 

Lincoln sat upon a sofa with his legs crossed, and 
did not say a word until the Secretary's last remark. 
Then he said in a somewhat positive tone : " Mr. 
Secretary, I reckon you'll have to execute the or- 
der." 

Stanton replied with asperity : 

" Mr. President, I cannot do it. The order is an 
improper one, and I cannot execute it." 

Lincoln fixed his eye upon Stanton, and in a firm 
voice, and with an accent that clearly showed his de- 
termination, he said : 

" Mr. Secretary, it will have to be cloned 

Stanton then realized that he was overmatched. 
He had made a square issue with the President and 
been defeated, notwithstanding the fact that he was 
in the right. Upon an intimation from him I with- 
drew and did not witness his surrender. A few 
minutes after I reached my ofifice I received in- 
structions from the Secretary to carry out the Presi- 
dent's order. Stanton never mentioned the subject 
to me afterward, nor did I ever ascertain the special, 



BY JAMES B. FRY. 399 

and no doubt sufficient, reasons which the President 
had for his action in the case. 

The vexatious duties of the general government 
concernino- the draft made demands upon Lincoln's 
ability not only in deciding important questions, 
but in avoiding decisions when it was not best to 
risk a rupture with State officials by rendering 
them. Upon one occasion the Governor of a State 
came to my office bristling with complaints in rela- 
tion to the number of troops required from his 
State, the details for drafting the men, and the plan 
of compulsory service in general. I found it im- 
possible to satisfy his demands, and accompanied 
him to the Secretary of War's office, whence, after 
a stormy interview with Stanton, he went alone to 
press his ultimatum upon the highest authority. 
After I had waited anxiously for some hours, ex- 
pecting important orders or decisions from the Pres- 
ident, or at least a summons to the White House 
for explanation, the Governor returned, and said 
with a pleasant smile that he was going home by 
the next train, and merely dropped in e7i route to 
say good-by. Neither the business he came upon 
nor his interview with the President was alluded to. 
As soon as I could see Lincoln, I said : 
" Mr. President, I am very anxious to learn how 

you disposed of Governor . He went to your 

office from the War Department in a towering 



400 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

rage. I suppose you found it necessary to make 
large concessions to him, as he returned from you 
entirely satisfied." 

" Oh, no," he replied, " I did not concede any- 
thing-. You know how that Illinois farmer man- 
aged the big log that lay in the middle of his 
field ! To the inquiries of his neighbors one Sun- 
day, he announced that he had got rid of the big 
log. ' Got rid of it ! ' said they, * how did you do 
it ? It was too big to haul out, too knotty to split, 
and too wet and soggy to burn ; what did you do ? ' 
' Well, now, boys,' replied the farmer ' if you won't 
divulge the secret, I'll tell you how I got rid of 
it — / ploughed around it' Now," said Lincoln, 
" don't tell anybody, but that's the way I got rid of 

Governor . I ploughed around hini, but it took 

me three mortal hours to do it, and I was afraid 
every minute he'd see what I was at." 

Lincoln was a good judge of men, and quickly 
learned the peculiar traits of character in those he 
had to deal with. 

I recall an anecdote by which he pointed out a 
marked trait in one of our Northern Governors. 
This Governor was earnest, able and untiring in 
keeping up the war spirit in his State, and in rais- 
ing and equipping troops ; but he always wanted 
his own way, and illy brooked the restraints im- 
posed by the necessity of conforming to a general 



BY JAMES B. FRY. 4OI 

system. Though devoted to the cause, he was at 
times overbearing and exacting in his intercourse 
with the general government. Upon one occasion 
he complained and protested more bitterly than 
usual, and warned those in authority that the exe- 
cution of their orders in his State would be beset 
by difficulties and dangers. The tone of his dis- 
patches gave rise to an apprehension that he might 
not co-operate fully in the enterprise in hand. The 
Secretary of War, therefore, laid the dispatches be- 
fore the President for advice or instructions. They 
did not disturb Lincoln in the least. In fact, they 
rather amused him. After reading all the papers, 
he said in a cheerful and reassuring tone : 

" Never mind, never mind ; those dispatches don't 
mean anything. Just go right ahead. The Gov- 
ernor is like a boy I saw once at a launching. 
When everything was ready they picked out a boy 
and sent him under the ship to knock away the 
trigger and let her go. At the critical moment 
everything depended on the boy. He had to do 
the job well by a direct vigorous blow, and then 
lie flat and keep still while the ship slid over him. 
The boy did everything right, but he yelled as if 
he was being murdered from the time he got under 
the keel until he got out. I thought the hide was 
all scraped off his back ; but he wasn't hurt at all. 

The master of the yard told me that this boy was 
26 



402 



REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



always chosen for that job, that he did his work 
well, that he never had been hurt, but that he 
always squealed in that way. That's just the way 

with Governor . Make up your minds that he 

is not hurt, and that he is doing the work right, and 
pay no attention to his squealing. He only wants 
to make you understand how hard his task is, and 
that he is on hand performing it." 

Time proved that the President's estimate of the 
Governor was correct. 

Lincoln watched the operations of the armies in 
the held with the deepest interest, the keenest in- 
sight, and the widest comprehension. The con- 
gratulatory order which General Meade published 
to his troops after the battle of Gettysburg was 
telegraphed to the War Department. During those 
days and nights of anxiety, Lincoln clung to the 
War Office, and devoured every scrap of news as it 
came over the telegraph wires. He hoped for and 
expected substantial fruits from our dearly bought 
victory at Gettysburg. I saw him read General 
Meade's congratulatory order. When he came to 
the sentence about " driving the invaders from our 
soil," an expression of disappointment settled upon 
his face, his hands dropped upon his knees, and in 
tones of anguish he exclaimed, " Drive the invadei^s 
froi7t our soil ! My God! Is that all f 

I was designated by the Secretary of War as a 



BY JAMES B. FRY. 4O3 

sort of special escort to accompany the President 
from Washington to Gettysburg upon the occasion 
of the first anniversary of the battle at that place. 
At the appointed time I went to the White House, 
where I found the President's carriaee at the door 
to take him to the station ; but he was not ready. 
When he appeared it was rather late, and I re- 
marked that he had no time to lose in oroinor to the 
train. " Well," said he, " I feel about that as the 
convict in one of our Illinois towns felt when he 
was going to the gallows. As he passed along the 
road in custody of the sheriff, the people, eager to 
see the execution, kept crowding and pushing past 
him. At last he called out : * Boys, you needn't be 
in such a hurry to get ahead, there woiit be any fun 
till I get there: " 

It has been said, I believe, that Lincoln wrote in 
the car en route to Gettysburg the celebrated speech 
which he delivered upon that historic battle-ground. 
I am quite sure that is an error. I have no recol- 
lection of seeing him writing or even reading his 
speech during the journey. In fact, there was hardly 
any opportunity for him to read or write. 

In April, 1865, I was sent with the government 
excursion from Washington to Charleston to take 
part in the ceremony of raising over Fort Sumter 
the flag that had been lowered there in April, 1861. 
When I reported to Stanton upon my return, he 



404 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

gave me a detailed account of the awful tragedy 
which had been enacted in the national capital dur- 
ing our absence. He said that he had never felt so 
sensible of his deep affection for Lincoln as he did 
during their final interview. At last they could see 
the end of bloody fratricidal war. Peace was dawn- 
ing upon their beloved country. "Well done, good 
and faithful servants ! " was upon the lips of the 
nation. As they exchanged congratulations, Lin- 
coln, from his greater height, dropped his long arm 
upon Stanton's shoulders, and a hearty embrace ter- 
minated their rejoicings over the close of the mighty 
struggle. Stanton went home happy. That night 
Lincoln was assassinated, and a black pall covered 

the land. 

JAMES B. FRY. 



lillllillilllll 



MX 



aiiiiiii.'Biiiiiiiiiiiiiif 










(^i^^ ?}t'6^acc^y 



XXIII. 

Hugh McCulloch. 

THE history of Mr. Lincoln's life is an exceed- 
ingly interesting one — more interesting in many 
respects than that of any other man which our coun- 
try has produced. 

Of humble parentage, without opportunities for 
mental culture in early life, he became an able lawyer, 
a forcible writer, a captivating and instructive speaker, 
an executive officer of singular foresight and wisdom 
in the most trying period of our nation's history. 
Before his joint debate with Mr. Douglas in 1858, he 
was little known outside of his own State. The 
ability which he displayed in that debate gave him a 
national reputation. He and Mr. Douglas were the 
rival candidates for a seat in the United States Sen- 
ate, of which Mr. Douglas was a prominent member, 
but whose term of office was about to expire. They 
had frequently met as opposing counsel in important 
suits. They were therefore well known to each 
other, and by their public speeches they were well 
known to the people of Illinois. They had, in one or 
two instances, addressed the same audiences upon po- 



406 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

litical subjects, but they had never met by agreement, 
at that time a common occurrence in the West, in 
pubHc debate. The question which then was excit- 
ing the greatest interest throughout the Union was 
slavery — not (with the exception of a comparatively 
few ultra-antislavery men in the Northern States) 
whether it should be abolished in the States where it 
existed, but whether it should be extended into the 
Territories. 

Mr. Douglas, as a United States Senator, had been 
largely instrumental in effecting a repeal of the com- 
promise by which Missouri had been admitted into 
the Union and the extension of slavery into other 
Territories prohibited. He was the leading advocate, 
in fact the father, of the doctrine of popular sover- 
eignty — the right of the people of the Territories, 
in preparing constitutions for admission into the 
Union as sovereign States, to determine for them- 
selves whether they should be slave States or free. 

Mr. Lincoln, although a hater of slavery, was not 
an Abolitionist. He had a profound reverence for 
the Constitution upon which the Union was founded, 
which recognized slavery as a local institution, but 
he was firm and unyielding in his opposition to its 
extension. 

Thus they stood before the people of Illinois the 
acknowledged representatives of their respective 
parties — one, the advocate of the nationalization of 



BY HUGH McCULLOCH. 407 

slavery ; the other, the advocate of freedom for all, 
and everywhere except in those States in which slav- 
ery had a constitutional existence. Neither was an 
extremist ; neither was the exponent of ultra doc- 
trines on either side. Mr. Lincoln did not eo far 
enough, in merely opposing the extension of slavery, 
to satisfy the Abolitionists of the North, who demand- 
ed the extirpation of slavery, root and branch, with- 
out regard to the sanctions of the Constitution. Mr. 
Douglas, who was neither an advocate nor an oppo- 
nent of slavery, did not go far enough to satisfy the 
pro-slavery leaders of the South, who contended for 
the right of slave-holders to take their slaves into the 
Territories and hold them there, in perpetual servi- 
tude, regardless of what he called popular, and they 
denounced as squatter, sovereignty. While, there- 
fore, neither of them came up to the high standard 
of either Abolitionists on the one hand or pro-slavery 
men on the other, the difference between them was 
decided and irreconcilable ; and in order that the dif- 
ference might be fairly and thoroughly discussed 
before the same audiences, Mr. Lincoln invited Mr. 
Douglas to meet him in a joint debate in some of 
the most populous counties of the State. The invi- 
tation was promptly accepted. The debate began on 
the 2 1 St of August and closed on the 15th of Octo 
ber. They spoke in the open air, and their speeches 
were listened to with the deepest interest by the 



AqS reminiscences of ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

many thousands who thronged to hear them. Thev 
were fully and carefully reported, and were published 
in the leading journals North and South. No speeches 
ever made in the United States commanded so great 
attention or made so deep an impression upon the 
public mind. It was, indeed, the opening of the " irre- 
pressible conflict" which Mr. Seward had predicted. 

Mr. Lincoln, in a speech which he made a short 
time before, had avowed the sentiment that the 
United States could not permanently continue to be 
" part slave and part free ; " that freedom or slavery 
sooner or later must become dominant in all the 
States ; that slavery was local ; that there was no 
warrant under the Constitution for its extension ; and 
that its extension could rightfully be prevented by 
Congress. ^ On the contrary, Mr. Douglas was com- 
mitted to the doctrine that slavery was nationalized 
by the Constitution ; that Congress had no authority 
to prevent its introduction to the Territories ; that 
the people of each Territory and each State could 
alone decide whether they should be slave States or 
free. In a word, he was committed to the doctrine 
of popular sovereignty in its widest sense. 

This really was the question to be discussed, but 
the discussion was not confined to it. In the course 
of the debate, slavery, its inhumanity, its influence 
upon the white population, its inconsistency with 
republicanism, were freely considered. 



BV HUGH McCULLOCH. 409 

At the beginning of the debate the advantages 
seemed to be on the side of Mr. Douglas. The anti- 
slavery sentiment had not taken root in Illinois. 
Washed by the Ohio on the south, and the Wabash 
on the west, by which the largest part of her surplus 
productions were sent to the Southern markets, her 
pecuniary interests bound her to the South. From 
her earliest settlement the slave-owners had been 
her best, almost her only reliable customers. Nor 
was this all. Illinois had been largely settled by 
immigrants from the slave States, so that she was 
connected with the South by social as well as pecun- 
iary ties. For more than half a century the Union 
had existed and rapidly grown in wealth and popu- 
lation, part slave and part free. Why might it not 
remain so, and still continue to thrive and prosper ? 
Besides, there was something captivating in the 
doctrine of popular sovereignty — the right of the 
people to govern themselves according to their own 
o-ood pleasure. Nor were these the only advantages 
possessed by Mr. Douglas. He was one of the 
ablest debaters in the country. To an almost un- 
limited command of language were added audacity 
and tact, which made him a formidable opponent in 
the United States Senate, filled as the Senate then 
was with very able and accomplished men. Upon 
the stump he had no equal. His voice was sonorous 
and flexible. Thoroughly versed in the political 



4IO REMINISCENCES OF ABU A HAM LINCOIN 

history of the country — bold, dashing, self-confident, 
and self-possessed — he was one whom very few men 
would have dared to encounter in a public debate. 
All this Mr. Lincoln perfectly understood, but he 
knew himself, and he was thoroughly convinced of 
the justice of his cause. He carried his conscience 
with him into the discussion. He made no statement 
which he did not believe to be true, took'no position 
which he was not able to defend. Less gifted in 
language, he was clearer in statement, more per- 
suasive and simple in style, stronger in his convic- 
tions, more earnest in presenting them, and more 
familiar with the character of those whom he was 
wont to call plain people, than his opponent. 

It can hardly be said that he was a victor in the 
debate, but it cannot be denied that when it closed 
the advantage was not on the side of Mr. Douglas. 

Like everybody else, I was greatly interested in the 
debate. Mr. Lincoln's speeches were not only very 
able, but they left the impression upon my mind that 
he possessed the elements of great personal popular- 
ity. So strong was this impression that, happening 
to be in Chicago in i860, when the Republican Con- 
vention was in session, and being asked by some of 
the delegates (when it was certain that either Mr. 
Seward or Mr. Lincoln would be nominated) to 
which I thought their votes should be given, I did not 
hesitate to say " that that depended upon what they 



BV HUGH McCULLOCH. 4I I 

wanted to do — if they wanted to vindicate the prin- 
ciples of the party, they should vote for Mr. Seward ; 
if they wanted to elect a President, they should vote 
for Mr. Lincoln." Mr. Seward had rendered great 
service to his party, of which he stood at the head ; 
his ability was undoubted, and he was the decided 
choice of the delegates from the Eastern States, but 
I doubted that enough of the Western States could 
be carried to secure his election. 

Mr. Lincoln's election precipitated the rebellion, 
but the time had come, sooner than had been ex- 
pected and in a different way, for the settlement of 
the question whether the United States were a Na- 
tion, to which allegiance was due by the people, or 
a confederation of States, from which any State or 
number of States might withdraw by their own in- 
dependent action ; and of the equally important 
question whether slavery or freedom should dom- 
inate throughout the Union. These questions were 
settled by war, and it is now quite certain that they 
could not have been settled by any other means. 
The cost of this settlement in treasure and blood 
was enormous, but it was incomparably less than 
would have been the evils which would have re- 
sulted from the nationalization of slavery or the per- 
petual strife which must have occurred between the 
sections if the Union had been disrupted. That the 
election of Mr. Lincoln was fortunate for the coun- 



412 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

try, and the whole country, is generally admitted. 
It would have been quite impossible for either of the 
other distinguished men whose names were before 
the convention for nomination for the Presidency to 
have retained the confidence of the people through 
the protracted struggle to the same extent that he 
did. 

Mr. Lincoln's character it is difficult to analyze, so 
rare and seemingly incongruous were its combina- 
tions. Instead, therefore, of attempting an analysis, 
I must confine my remarks to a description of his 
appearance, and of his prominent and singular, if 
not inconsistent, characteristics. 

In form, Mr. Lincoln was tall and angular, lacking 
in compactness, but strong and sturdy, with great 
capacity for work and power of endurance. His 
features were coarse, and to strangers uncomely, 
but prepossessing to those who became his friends. 
His face, dull and heavy when in repose, was all 
alight with intelligence when in conversation. " I 
thought," said a lady, " when I first saw him that he 
was one of the ugfliest of men. Now that I know 
him well, he seems to me to be perfectly charming." 
Grave and sedate in manner, he was full of kind and 
gentle emotions. He was fond of poetry. Shake- 
speare was his delight. Few men could read with 
equal expression the plays of the great dramatist. 

The theater had great attractions for him, but it 



BY HUGH McCULLOCH. 413 

was comedy, not tragedy, he went to hear. He had 
great enjoyment of the plays that made him laugh, 
no matter how absurd and grotesque, and he gave 
expression to his enjoyment by hearty and noisy 
applause. He was a man of strong religious con- 
victions, but he cared nothing for the dogmas of 
the churches, and had little respect for their creeds. 
As a lawyer and advocate, Mr. Lincoln had no su- 
perior in Illinois and few superiors in the older 
States. His practice was not broad or varied 
enough to require constant study of authorities, 
but his mind was keen, clear, discriminating, and 
he was well grounded in the elementary principles 
of the law. His arguments before the court were 
always carefully prepared, pointed, and cogent. Be- 
fore a jury he was especially effective. One of his 
most distinguished characteristics as an advocate 
was the suppression of himself in his arguments to 
the jurors. It was his aim to fix the facts, and the 
facts only, upon their minds. Comprehending per- 
fectly the points upon which the case depended, 
to them he directed the attention of the jury, wast- 
ing no words upon unimportant matters ; never 
wearisome by long speeches, with great aptitude 
discovering the characters of jurors, always intel- 
ligible and earnest, he never failed to interest and 
rarely to convince. The same qualities were dis- 
played in his public speeches — models they were 



414 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOIN 

of clear, simple, and consequently of forcible speak- 
ing. 

The first time I saw and heard him was at Indian- 
apolis, shortly after the conclusion of his debate with 
Mr. Douglas. Careless of his attire, ungraceful in 
his movements, I thought as he came forward to 
address the audience that his was the most ungainly 
figure I had ever seen upon a platform. Could this 
be Abraham Lincoln whose speeches I had read 
with so much interest and admiration — this plain, 
dull-looking man the one who had successfully 
encountered in debate one of the most gifted 
speakers of his time? The question was speedily 
answered by the speech. The subject was slavery — 
its character, its incompatibility with Republican in- 
stitutions, its demoralizing influences upon society, 
its aggressiveness, its rights as limited by the Consti- 
tution ; all of which were discussed with such clear- 
ness, simplicity, earnestness, and force as to carry me 
with him to the conclusion that the country could 
not long continue part slave and part free — that 
freedom must prevail throughout the length and 
breadth of the land, or that the great Republic, In- 
stead of being the home of the free and the hope of 
the oppressed, would become a by-word and a re- 
proach among the nations. 

Mr. Lincoln was not a polished writer, but he 
wrote correctly and with great precision. In clearness 



BY HUGH McCULLOCH. 415 

of expression, in conciseness, in the use of apt and 
appropriate language, which everybody could un- 
derstand, it would be difficult to find his superior. 
His letters in explanation and defense of his hesita- 
tion to proclaim freedom to the slaves, especially his 
reply to Mr. Greeley, are masterpieces of clear and 
forcible writing. The concluding paragraph of his 
first inaugural — "The mystic chords of memory, 
stretching from every battle-field and patriot grave 
to every living heart and hearth-stone all over this 
broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, 
when again touched, as surely they will be, by the 
better angels of our nature " — is as happy in expres- 
sion as it is touching and beautiful in thought. 

Mr. Lincoln was not an orator, and yet where in 
the English language can be found eloquence of 
higher tone or more magnetic power than was ex- 
hibited in his little speech at the consecration of the 
battle-field cemetery near Gettysburg ? — 

" Four-score and seven years ago, our fathers 
brought forth on this continent a new nation, con- 
ceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition 
that all men are created equal. Now we are en- 
gaged in a great civil war, testing whether that na- 
tion, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, 
can lonof endure. We are met on a o^reat battle-field 
of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of 
that field as a final resting-place for those who here 



41 6 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

gave their lives that that nation might live. It is 
altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. 

" But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate — we 
cannot consecrate — we cannot hallow this ground. 
The brave men who struggled here have consecrated 
it far above our poor power to add or detract. The 
world will little note nor long remember what we 
say here, but it can never forget what they did here. 
It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here 
to the unfinished work which they who fought here 
have thus far so nobly advanced. It is, rather, for us 
to be here dedicated to the great task remaining be- 
fore us, that from these honored dead we take in- 
creased devotion to that cause for which they gave 
the last full measure of devotion ; that we here 
highly resolve that these dead shall not have died 
in vain ; that this nation, under God, shall have a 
new birth of freedom ; and that government of the 
people, by the people, for the people, shall not per- 
ish from the earth." 

He followed Edward Everett, whose speech was 
worthy of his reputation as one of the most accom- 
plished orators of the age, and when he concluded, 
it is said that Mr. Everett, taking Mr. Lincoln's hand, 
remarked : " My speech will soon be forgotten ; 
yours never will be. How gladly would I exchange 
my hundred pages for your twenty lines ! " 

Mr. Lincoln excelled as a story-teller. The habit 



BY HUGH AIcCULLOCH. 417 

of Story-telling was formed in his early professional 
life, when in company with a few other prominent 
members of the bar, he visited counties, at long dis- 
tances from his own, to try important cases. The 
journeys from county to county were long and pro- 
tracted, and as there were no newspapers nor books 
in the cabins where they spent the nights, these 
lawyer circuit-riders, as they were called, killed the 
time, as the saying was, by telling stories, in which 
invention as well as memory was brought into play. 
In inventing stories and skill in telling them Mr. 
Lincoln was the acknowledged leader. The habit 
of story-telling, thus formed, became part of his nat- 
ure, and he gave free rein to it, even when the fate 
of the nation seemed to be trembling in the balance. 
Some eight or ten days after the first battle of 
Bull Run, when Washington was utterly demoralized 
by its result, I called upon him at the White House, 
in company with a few friends, and was amazed 
when, referring to something which had been said 
by one of the company about the battle which was 
so disastrous to the Union forces, he remarked, in his 
usual quiet manner, " That reminds me of a story," 
which he told in a manner so humorous as to indi- 
cate that he was free from care and apprehension. 
This to me was surprising. I could not then un- 
derstand how the President could feel like telling a 
story when Washington was in danger of being capt- 



4l8 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM IINCOLN 

ured, and the whole North was dismayed ; and I left 
the White House with the feeling that I had been 
mistaken in Mr. Lincoln's character, and that his 
election might prove to have been a fatal mistake. 
This feeling was changed from day to day as the 
war went on ; but it was not entirely overcome until 
I went to Washington in the spring of 1863, and as 
an officer of the government was permitted to ^have 
free intercourse with him. I then perceived that 
my estimate of him before his election was well 
grounded, and that he possessed even higher qual- 
ities than I had given him credit for; that he was a 
man of sound judgment, great singleness and te- 
nacity of purpose, and extraordinary sagacity ; that 
story-telling was to him a safety-valve, and that he 
indulged in it, not only for the pleasure it afforded 
him, but for a temporary relief from oppressing 
cares ; that the habit had been so cultivated that he 
could make a story illustrate a sentiment and give 
point to an argument. Many of his stories were as 
apt and instructive as the best of ^sop's fables. 
All of his stories, however, were not of this char- 
acter. Next to the theater he liked to tell stories 
and to listen to them. The evening of the day 
on which the reports of Sheridan's great victory 
in the Valley of Virginia were received I spent 
with him, in company with Mr. Randall, Postmas- 
ter-General, and a few of Mr. Lincoln's personal 



BY HUGH McCULLOCH. ^^jg 

friends, at the Soldiers' Home. Mr. Lincoln was in 
the best of spirits, and Randall was also a good 
story-teller. For two hours there was a constant 
run of story-telling — Lincoln leading and Randall 
following — a contest between them as to which 
should tell the best story and provoke the heartiest 
lauehter. The stories were not such as would be 
listened to with pleasure by very refined ears, but 
they were exceedingly funny. The verdict of the 
listeners was that, while the stories were equally 
good, Mr. Lincoln had displayed the most humor 
and skill. 

Mr. Lincoln was severely denounced not only by 
the out-and-out Abolitionists, but by men less pro- 
nounced in their antislavery views, such as Mr. 
Wade and Mr. Greeley, for his delay in emancipat- 
ing the slaves, under his war power, as it was called. 
This delay was caused by his doubts as to whether 
the public sentiment of the North, with which he 
always kept abreast, was prepared for a measure 
so momentous and far-reaching ; by his profound 
respect for the Constitution which he had sworn to 
maintain ; and especially by his fears that emancipa- 
tion would retard, if it did not prevent, the restora- 
tion of the Union. In his letter to Mr. Greeley, on 
the 22d of August, 1862, he said : 

" My paramount object is to save the Union, and 
not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could 



A^Q REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

save the Union without freeing any slaves, I would 
do it ; if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I 
would do it ; and if I could save it by freeing some 
and leaving others alone, I would do it." 

It must be admitted that this language was hardly 
consistent with the opinion he had so frequently ex- 
pressed before his election, that the United States 
could not continue to be part slave, part free, or with 
his well-known abhorrence of slavery ; but it was in 
perfect harmony with his utterances after he became 
President, and with the avowed purpose of the gov- 
ernment in prosecuting the war. He did, however, 
subject himself to the charge of inconsistency, by 
exempting from the operation of his proclamation 
West Virginia and such parts of the other Southern 
States as were in the possession of the Federal 
forces ; by proclaiming freedom to the slave where 
his authority could not be exercised, and leaving, 
where it was felt and acknowledged, many thousands 
in bondage. Nothing was or could be gained by not 
including all slaves in his proclamation of freedom, 
and his failure to do it greatly prejudiced the Union 
cause in Great Britain and other European states. 
The right to confiscate the property that could be 
reached in the South was unquestionable ; his right 
to liberate the slaves, which was one form of confis- 
cation, where the Confederate authority was domi- 
nant, was at least doubtful. Fortunately for the 



B V HUGH McCULLOCH. ^2 I 

country, this was not left an open question. The 
doom of slavery in the United States was sealed by 
the amendments of the Constitution soon after the 
war was ended. 

Whether Mr. Lincoln would have been competent 
to deal with the questions which were presented 
after the war, in the reconstruction of the Southern 
States — whether he would have exhibited the quali- 
ties of a statesman — is, I know, regarded by many as 
somewhat doubtful ; but it is, I think, only fair to 
infer, from the ability which he displayed as Presi- 
dent, that he would have been equal to the new 
duties which he would have been called to perform, 
if he had completed the term for which he had been 
elected. He was well versed in constitutional law, 
his mind was well balanced, he was free from vindic- 
tiveness, and he was eminently patriotic. He would 
not have quarreled with his party, as his successor, 
Mr. Johnson, did. He had the confidence of the 
people, and could, therefore, have given direction to 
reconstructive legislation. His aim would have been 
to bring about by honorable conciliation harmonious 
relations between the sections, to secure the suprem- 
acy of the government without interference with the 
reserved rights of the States. There is nothing on 
his record to indicate that he would have favored the 
immediate and full enfranchisement of those who, 
having been always in servitude, were unfitted for 



42 2 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

an intelligent and independent use of the ballot. In 
the plan for the rehabilitation of the South which he 
and his Cabinet had partially agreed upon, and which 
Mr. Johnson and the same Cabinet endeavored to 
perfect and carry out, no provision was made for 
negro suffrage. This question was purposely left 
open for further consideration and for Congressional 
action, under such amendments of the Constitution 
as the changed condition of the country might ren- 
der necessary. From some of his incidental expres- 
sions, and from his well-known opinions upon the 
subject of suffrage and the States to regulate it, my 
conclusion is that he would have been disposed to 
let that question remain as it stood before the war ; 
with, however, such amendments of the Constitution 
as would have prevented any but those who were 
permitted to vote in Federal elections from being 
included in the enumeration for representatives in 
Congress, thus inducing the recent slave States, 
for the purpose of increasing their Congressional in- 
fluence and power, to give the ballot to black men as 
well as white. 

Nor would Mr. Lincoln have been vindictive 
against the masses who had been in arms against 
the government. Educated, as the people of the 
South had been, in the doctrine that the Union was 
a confederation of States, from which any State or 
number of States might withdraw when,in the opinion 



BY HUGH Mcculloch. 423 

of a majority of their citizens, it had failed to accom- 
plish the object for which it was formed, he would 
not have regarded the attempted secession as being 
treason, in the ordinary acceptation of the term ; nor 
would he have regarded as traitors any of the South- 
ern people except those who, while continuing to 
hold Federal offices and to draw their pay from the 
Federal Treasury, used the influence of their posi- 
tions to overthrow the government whose servants 
they were. For them he would have favored no for- 
giveness, to them he would have granted no pardons. 
They were guilty of treason, for which there could 
be no palliation. These, however, were compara- 
tively few. The war on the part of the South was 
revolutionary. It was not only so considered by 
other nations, but by those who administered the 
government after the war was ended. Officers of 
hio-h standing in the Confederate army were ap- 
pointed to Federal offices by General Grant. The 
Vice-President of the Confederacy, when subse- 
quently in Congress, was treated with great respect 
by both parties. Two of the members of the pres- 
ent Cabinet, and nearly every one of the Southern 
Senators in the last and present Congress, held 
distinguished civil or military positions under the 
Confederate Government. This would not, could 
not, have been the case had they been guilty of 
treason, They were revolutionists, not traitors, and 



424 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

as such they would have been treated by Mr. Lin- 
cohi. 

Nor would Mr. Lincoln have appointed to South- 
ern offices such men as, unfortunately, were ap- 
pointed, whose chief mission seemed to have been 
to enrich themselves, overload the States with debt, 
and perpetuate the sectional discord which had al- 
ways, to some extent, existed, and which had been 
acrcrravated and intensified by the war. His sym- 
pathy was as broad as his patriotism. Devoted to 
the Union — not merely a geographical union, but 
a true national Union — his aim would have been 
to build up the waste places, give new life to 
Southern industry, and bind together North and 
South, the people of the country and the whole 
country, by ties of mutual respect, brotherhood and 
interest. 

In what, then, consisted Mr. Lincoln's greatness? 
Not in his legal acquirements ; not in his skill as a 
writer or effectiveness as a speaker ; not in his ex- 
ecutive ability — although In these respects he com- 
manded great respect ; but in the strength of his con- 
victions ; his unwavering adherence to the principles 
which he avowed ; his personal uprightness ; his 
sound judgment ; his knowledge of the people, 
gained rather by a study of himself than of them ; 
his love of country ; his humanity ; his sublime 
faith in Republican institutions. 



B Y HUGH Mcculloch. 425 

It was these qualities, rarely found in combina- 
tion, which made him great and fitted him for the 
high position which he filled with so much credit to 
himself and with lasting honor and benefit to the 
nation. 

HUGH Mcculloch. 



XXIV. 

Chauncey M. Depew. 

I SAW Mr. Lincoln a number of times during the 
canvass for his second election. The character- 
istic which struck me most was his superabundance 
of common sense. His power of managing- men, of 
deciding and avoiding difficult questions, surpassed 
that of any man I ever met. A keen insight of 
human nature had been cultivated by the trials and 
struggles of his early life. He knew the people and 
how to reach them better than any man of his time. 
I heard him tell a great many stories, many of 
which would not do exactly for the drawing-room ; 
but for the person he wished to reach, and the ob- 
ject he desired to accomplish with the individual, 
the story did more than any argument could have 
done. 

He said to me once, in reference to some sharp 
criticisms which had been made upon his story- 
telling : " They say I tell a great many stories ; I 
reckon I do, but I have found in the course of a 
long experience that common people " — and repeat- 
ing it — "common people, take them as they run. 



428 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

are more easily influenced and informed through 
the medium of a broad illustration than in any other 
way, and as to what the hypercritical few may think, 
I don't care." 

He said : " I have originated but two stories in 
my life, but I tell tolerably well other people's 
stories." He said that, " riding the circuit for many 
years and stopping at country taverns where were 
gathered the lawyers, jurymen, witnesses and clients, 
they would sit up all night narrating to each other 
their life adventures ; and that the things which 
happened to an original people, in a new country, 
surrounded by novel conditions, and told with the 
descriptive power and exaggeration which character- 
ized such men, supplied him with an exhaustless 
fund of anecdote which could be made applicable 
for enforcing or refuting an argument better than 
all the invented stories of the world." 

Several times when I saw him, he seemed to be 
oppressed not only with the labors of the position, 
but especially with care and anxiety growing out of 
the intense responsibility which he felt for the issue 
of the conflict and the lives which were lost. He 
knew the whole situation better than any man in the 
administration, and virtually carried on in his own 
mind not only the civic side of the government, 
but all the campaigns. And I knew when he threw 
himself (as he did once when I was there) on a 



BY CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 429 

lounge, and rattled off story after story, that it was 
his method of relief, without which he might have 
gone out of his mind, and certainly would not have 
been able to have accomplished anything like the 
amount of work which he did. 

Governor Seymour was elected on the Democratic 
ticket in 1862 as Governor of the State of New 
York, and the following year I was elected at the 
head of the Republican ticket as Secretary of State. 
A law was passed by the Legislature, which was Re- 
publican, to take the soldiers' vote. Well, ordinarily 
this duty would have devolved upon the Governor. 
Because the Legislature in this instance imposed it 
upon me, I spent much time in Washington en- 
deavoring to get the data to send out the necessary 
papers enabling the New York soldiers to vote. 
Under the Act each soldier was to make out his 
ballot, and it was to be certified by the commanding 
officer of his company or regiment, and then sent to 
some friend at his last voting place to be deposited 
on election day. It was therefore necessary for me 
to ascertain the location of every New York com- 
pany and regiment. They were scattered all over 
the South, and in all the armies. Secretary Stanton 
refused to give me any information whatever, and, 
finally, with a great deal of temper, informed me one 
day that information of that character given to poli- 
ticians would reach the newspapers, and through 



430 



REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



them the enemy, and in that way the Confederates 
would know by the location of the New York troops 
precisely the condition and situation of every army 
corps, brigade, and battery. As I was leaving the 
War Department I met Mr. Washburne and the 
Marshal of the district cominor in. Mr. Washburne 
said : " Depew, you seem to be in a state of con- 
siderable excitement." I told him of my interview 
with Mr. Stanton, and that I was going home to 
New York, and would publish in the morning papers 
a card that the soldiers' votes could not be taken, 
owing to the action of Secretary Stanton. And I 
added : *' I can inform you that a failure to get 
them will lose Mr. Lincoln the electoral vote of 
New York." Mr. Washburne said : " You don't know 
Lincoln ; he is as good a politician as he is a Presi- 
dent, and if there was no other way to get those 
votes he would go round with a carpet-bag and col- 
lect them himself." He then asked me to wait until 
the President could be informed as to the facts. I 
stood in the corridor leading to Mr. Stanton's room, 
and in about fifteen minutes an orderly came out 
and said the Secretary wanted to see Mr. Depew. 
I went in, and Secretary Stanton met me with the 
most cordial politeness ; inquired when I arrived in 
Washington, if I had any business with his depart- 
ment, and whether he could do anything for me. I 
restated to him what I had already stated at least 



BY CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 43! 

half a dozen times before. He sent me with an 
order so peremptory to the head of one of the bu- 
reaus, that I left Washington that night with a list 
and location of every organization of New York 
troops. 

When I reached New York I summoned the offi- 
cers of the express companies of that day to know if 
they could get the packages containing the blanks 
for the soldiers' votes to the various regiments and 
companies and batteries of New York troops, scat- 
tered as they were all over the South. Without 
consultation, they said it could not be done. I then 
sent for old Mr. Butterfield, the originator of the 
American Express Company, and stated the case to 
him. He said they were organized for such pur- 
poses, and if they could not accomplish them they 
had better disband. He then undertook to arrange 
through the various express companies, by his own 
direct superintendence, to secure the safe delivery in 
time to every company — and he succeeded. 

This anecdote illustrates the difference between 
Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Stanton. Mr. Stanton, in his 
anxiety to protect the inviolability of the secrets of 
his department, was unable to see that if the ad- 
ministration of which he was a member was defeated 
in the election, the most disastrous result to the 
cause which he had at heart might follow, while 
Mr. Lincoln comprehended at once that the minor 



432 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM IINCOLN 

danger was of no moment in comparison with the 
end to be gained. 

While Mr. Lincoln's appreciation of humor was 
wonderful, I do not think his estimate of humor was 
very critical. He told me that, in his judgment, one 
of the two best things he ever originated was this : 
He was trying a cause in Illinois where he appeared 
for a prisoner charged with aggravated assault and 
battery. The complainant had told a horrible story 
of the attack, which his appearance fully justified, 
when the district attorney handed the witness over 
to Mr. Lincoln for cross-examination. Mr. Lincoln 
said he had no testimony, and unless he could break 
down the complainant's story he saw no way out. 
He had come to the conclusion that the witness was 
a bumptious man, who rather prided himself upon 
his smartness in repartee, and so, after looking at 
him for some minutes, he said : " Well, my friend, 
how much ground did you and my client here fight 
over?" The fellow answered : " About six acres." 
" Well," said Mr. Lincoln, " don't you think that this 
is an almighty small crop of fight to gather from 
such a big piece of ground ? " The jury laughed, the 
court and district attorney and complainant all 
joined in, and the case was laughed out of court. 

His skill in parrying troublesome questions was 
wonderful. I was in Washington at a critical period 
of the war, when the late John Ganson, of Buffalo, 



BY CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 433 

one of the ablest lawyers in our State, and who, 
though elected as a Democrat, supported all Mr. 
Lincoln's war measures, called on him for explana- 
tions. Mr. Ganson was very bald, with perfectly 
smooth face, and had a most direct and aggressive 
way of stating his views, or of demanding what he 
thouo-ht he was entitled to. He said : " Mr. Lin- 
coin, I have supported all of your measures, and 
think I am entitled to your confidence. We are vot- 
ing and acting in the dark in Congress, and I de- 
mand to know — think I have the right to ask and to 
l^now — what is the present situation, and what are the 
prospects and conditions of the several campaigns 
and armies." Mr. Lincoln looked at him quizzically 
for a moment, and then said : '* Ganson, how clean 
you shave ! " Most men would have been offended, 
but Ganson was too broad and intelligent a man not 
to see the point and retire at once, satisfied, from 
the field. 

The late Schuyler Colfax told me that he was 
present at an interview accorded to the represent- 
atives of the moneyed interests of New York, when 
the Merrimac escaped from Hampton Roads and 
was supposed to be making its way to that port. 

The delegation arose one after another, one man 
statino- that he was worth $10,000,000, and another 
that he represented $50,000,000, and another that he 

was worth several millions of dollars and represented 

28 



434 REMFiXISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

many times as many millions more ; and that they 
had paid their taxes, subscribed to the Government's 
loans, and ought to be protected. Mr. Lincoln said : 
" Well, gentlemen, the Government has no vessel as 
yet, that I know of, which can sink the Merrimac, 
and our resources, both of money and credit, are 
strained to the utmost. But if I had as much money 
as you say you have got, and was as ' skeered ' as 
you seem to be, I would find means to prevent the 
Mcrrimac ever reaching my property." 

Mr. Lincoln's avidity for a new story was very 
great. I remember once at a reception, as the line 
was passing and he was shaking hands with each one 
in the usual way, that he stopped a friend of mine 
who was moving immediately ahead of me. He 
whispered something in his ear, and then listened at- 
tentively for five minutes — the rest of us waiting, 
devoured with curiosity as to what great secret of 
state could have so singularly interrupted the festival. 
I seized my friend the instant we passed the Presi- 
dent, as did everybody else who knew him, to find 
out what the communication meant. I learned that 
he had told Mr. Lincoln a first-class anecdote a few 
days before, and the President, having forgotten 
the point, had arrested the movement of three thou- 
sand guests in order to get it on the spot. 

He had a very sharp controversy with Mr. Greeley 
with reference to what was known as the Clifton 



BY CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 435 

House proposition for the settlement of the war. 
Thompson, Clay and Saunders appeared at the Clif- 
ton House, Canada, and gave out that they were 
commissioners from the Confederate Government, 
entitled to treat for peace. Mr. Greeley wrote a 
letter to Mr. Lincoln, in which he said, among other 
things, that, if Mr. Lincoln did not meet these com- 
missioners in the same spirit, he would be held per- 
sonally responsible, by his countrymen and by poster- 
ity, for every drop of blood that was thereafter shed, 
every dollar that was thereafter spent. Mr. Lincoln 
then wrote a private letter to Mr. Greeley, requesting 
him to go quietly to Niagara Falls to see the alleged 
commissioners (two of whom Mr. Greeley knew in- 
timately as old Whig politicians), and ascertain 
whether they had any credentials, then report to him. 
Instead of that, Mr. Greeley sat himself down at the 
Cataract House as a sort of minister plenipotentiary, 
and, surrounded by a cloud of reporters, proceeded 
to communicate by formal messages with the gentle- 
men at the Clifton House. The matter became so 
embarrassing to the government, that Mr. Lincoln 
recalled Mr. Greeley, and issued his famous " To 
all whom it may concern ; " saying in substance that, 
if any one was authorized by the Confederate Gov- 
ernment to treat for peace, he should have safe con- 
duct to Washington and return. 

It turned out that Thompson, Clay and Saunders 



436 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM IINCOLN 

had no authorization whatever, as Mr. Lincoln sus- 
pected. Mr. Greeley, however, never would believe 
this, and every few days he criticised the conduct of 
the President with great severity. It annoyed Mr. 
Lincoln probably more than anything which hap- 
pened during his administration. 

He was talking the matter over one day, and com- 
plaining of the injustice to himself involved in Mr. 
Greeley's criticisms, and the false light in which they 
put him before the country. A friend of mine who 
enjoyed Mr. Lincoln's confidence, said, with great 
earnestness : 

" Why don't you publish these facts in a card ; 
they will be printed in every newspaper in the 
United States ? The people will then understand 
exactly your position, and your vindication will be 
complete." 

Mr. Lincoln replied : "Yes, all the newspapers will 
publish my letter, and so will Greeley. The next 
day he will take a line and comment upon it, and 
he will keep it up, in that way, until, at the end of 
three weeks. I will be convicted out of my own 
mouth of all the things which he charges against me. 
No man, whether he be private citizen or President 
of the United States, can successfully carry on a con- 
troversy with a great newspaper, and escape destruc- 
tion, unless he owns a newspaper equally great, with 
a circulation in the same neiohborhood." 



BY CHAUMCEY M. DEPEW. 437 

While Mr. Lincoln was in the broadest sense a 
statesman — comprehending thoroughly the situation 
as it stood, the things necessary to be done to re- 
establish the unity of the Republic on a permanent 
basis, and the materials with which he had to bring 
about the desired results — he was at the same time 
a thoroughly practical politician. He knew the 
value of " workers," as they are called, of trained 
politicians, of political methods, and precisely how 
to utilize them, better than any man in his Cabinet 
or out of it, with the possible exception of Thurlow 
Weed. 

When we come to consider, however, his place 
in history, the human side of his character, his 
humor, his fondness for anecdote, his keen appre- 
hension of character, and his rough-and-ready way of 
handling men, will be forgotten. He did enough of 
solid and enduring work to place him among the 
very few supremely great men this country has pro- 
duced. No conditions had before existed nor can 
ever again arise which will put it in the power of an- 
other statesman to issue an emancipation proclama- 
tion. 

His controversy with Douglas and his speech at 
Gettysburg will continue him in the front rank of 
American Presidents, while, more and more, as the 
facts are sifted, and minor details drop out so that 
only the great salient points of the civil war and its 



438 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

results are seen, the world will find that he discov- 
ered first the weaknesses of generals, and removed 
them ; the defects of plan of campaign, and repaired 
them ; and that he was not only one of the greatest 
of constructive statesmen, but that he was also a 
general of the rarest ability. 

CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 



>^: 




/^c^JZj^ /2 ^^!^cA^ 



XXV. 

David R. Locke. 

To write recollections of Abraham Lincoln is a 
pleasant task. The greatest man, in some re- 
spects, who ever lived, and in all respects the most 
lovable — a man whose great work gave him the heart 
of every human being — with a heart^throughout 
the civilized world, and whose tragic death made a 
world sigh in pity. It was an honor to know him, 
and more than an honor to be approved by him. 

The first time I saw the great and good Lincoln 
(alas! that "great" and "good" cannot be more fre- 
quently associated in speaking of public men) was 
at Ouincy, 111 , in October — I think it was — 1858. 
It was at the close of the greatest political struggle 
this country ever witnessed. Stephen A. Douglas 
was the acknowledged champion of the Democratic 
Party, a position he had held unquestioned for 
years. He came Into his heritage of leadership at 
an unfortunate time, just when the scepter was de- 
parting from the organization which he had headed, 
but he was especially unfortunate in being pitted 
against the most honest statesman In the opposition, 



440 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM IINCOLN 

a man upon whose face the Creator had set the 
assurance of absolute, unselfish integrity — of one 
whose outward seeming was a true index of the 
inward man. Douglas was perhaps as honest as 
politicians usually are ; he had doubtless worked 
himself up to the point of actually believing the lies 
which he had fashioned to subserve his own ends ; 
but Lincoln had never so deceived himself. He was 
absolutely honest — honest all the way through — and 
in face and manner satisfied all men that he was 
so. What might happen to him never influenced 
either his advocacy or opposition of any measure 
that might come before the people. 

A mere politician like Douglas, who was so full of 
self that there was room for nothing else, was 
very indiscreet in trying conclusions before the peo- 
ple with any such man as Lincoln. The average 
instinct of the masses in such matters is unerr- 
ing. 

I found Mr. Lincoln in a room of a hotel, sur- 
rounded by admirers, who had made the discovery 
that one who had previously been considered merely 
a curious compound of genius and simplicity was 
a really great man. When Lincoln was put forward 
as the antagonist of the hitherto invincible Doug- 
las, it was with fear and trembling, with the expect- 
ancy of defeat ; but this mature David of the new 
faith had met the Goliath of the old, and had prac- 



BY DAVID R. LOCKE. 44 1 

tically slain him. He had swept over the State Hke 
a cyclone — not a raging, devastating cyclone, the 
noise of which equaled its destructive power, but a 
modest and unassuming force, which was the more 
powerful because the force could not be seen. It 
was the cause which won, but in other hands than 
Lincoln's it might have failed. Therefore, wherever 
he went crowds of admiring men followed him, all 
eager to worship at the new shrine around which 
such glories were gathering. 

I succeeded in obtaining an interview with him 
after the crowd had departed, and I esteem it 
something to be proud of that he seemed to take 
a liking to me. He talked to me without reserve. 
It was many years ago, but I shall never forget it. 

He sat in the room with his boots off, to relieve 
his very large feet from the pain occasioned by con- 
tinuous standing; or, to put it in his own words : "I 
like to give my feet a chance to breathe." He had 
removed his coat and vest, dropped one suspender 
from his shoulder, taken off his necktie and collar, 
and thus comfortably attired, or rather unattired, 
he sat tilted back in one chair with his feet upon 
another in perfect ease. He seemed to dislike cloth- 
ing, and in privacy wore as little of it as he could. 
I remember the picture as though I saw it but yes- 
terday. 

Those who accuse Lincoln of frivolity never knew 



442 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

him. I never saw a more thoughtful face, I never 
saw a more dignified face, I never saw so sad a face. 
He had humor of which he was totally unconscious, 
but it was not frivolity. He said wonderfully witty 
things, but never from a desire to be witty. His 
wit was entirely illustrative. He used it because, 
and only because, at times he could say more in this 
way. and better illustrate the idea with which he 
was pregnant. He never cared how he made a 
point so that he made it, and he never told a story 
for the mere sake of telling a story. When he did 
it, it was for the purpose of illustrating and making- 
clear a point. He was essentially epigrammatic and 
parabolic. He was a master of satire, which was 
at times as blunt as a meat-ax, and at others as 
keen as a razor; but it was always kindly except 
when some horrible injustice was its inspiration, and 
then it was terrible. Weakness he was never fero- 
cious with, but intentional wickedness he never 
spared. 

In this interview the name came up of a recently 
deceased politician of Illinois, whose undeniable 
merit was blemished by an overweening vanity. His 

funeral was very largely attended : " If General 

had known how big a funeral he would have 
had," said Mr. Lincoln, " he would have died years 

ago." 

But with all the humor in his nature, which was 



BY DAVID R. LOCKE. 



443 



more than humor because it was humor with a pur- 
pose (that constituting the difference between humor 
and wit), his was the saddest face I ever looked 
upon. 

His flow of humor was a sparkhng spring gushing 
out of a rock — the flashing water had a somber 
backgrround which made it all the briorhter. When- 
ever merriment came over that wonderful counte- 
nance it was like a gleam of sunshine upon a cloud — 
it illuminated, but did not dissipate. The premoni- 
tion of fate was on him then ; the shadow of the 
tragic closing of the great destiny in the beyond had 
already enveloped him. 

At the time, he said he should carry the State on 
the popular vote, but that Douglas would, never- 
theless, be elected to the Senate, owing to the skill- 
ful manner in which the State had been districted in 
his interest, "You can't overturn a pyramid, but 
you can undermine it ; that's what I have been try- 
ing to do." 

He undermined the pyramid that the astute 
Douglas had erected, most effectually. It toppled 
and fell very shortly afterward. 

The difference between the two men was illus- 
trated the next day in their opening remarks. Lin- 
coln said (I quote from memory) : 

" I have had no immediate conference with Judge 
Douglas, but I am sure that he and I will agree that 



444 REMIXISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

your entire silence when I speak and he speaks will 
be most agreeable to us." 

Douglas said at the beginning of his speech : 
" The highest compliment you can pay me is b}' ob- 
servinof a strict silence. / dcsii'c rather to be heard 
than applauded.'' 

The inborn modesty of the one and the bound- 
less vanity of the other could not be better illus- 
trated. Lincoln claimed nothing for himself — 
Douglas spoke as if applause must follow his utter- 
ances. 

The character of the two men was still better illus- 
trated in their speeches. The self-sufficiency of 
Douglas in his opening might be pardoned, for he 
had been fed upon applause till he fancied himself a 
more than Csesar; but his being a popular idol could 
not justify the demagogy that saturated the speech 
itself. Douglas v/as the demagogue all the way 
through. There was no trick of presentation that 
he did not use. He suppressed facts, twisted con- 
clusions, and perverted history. He wriggled and 
turned and dodged ; he appealed to prejudices ; in 
short, it was evident that what he was laboring for 
was Douglas and nothing else. The cause he pro- 
fessed was lost sight of in the claims of its advocate. 
Lincoln, on the other hand, kept strictly to the ques- 
tions at issue, and no one could doubt but that the 
cause for which he was speaking was the only thing 



BY DAVID A". LOCKE. 445 

he had at heart ; that his personal interests did not 
weigh a particle. He was the representative of an 
idea, and in the vastness of the idea its advocate 
was completely swallowed up. 

Lincoln admitted frankly all the weak points in 
the position of his party in the most open way, 
and that simple honesty carried conviction with it. 
His admissions of weakness, where weakness was 
visible, strengthened his position on points where he 
was strong. He knew that the people had intelli- 
gence enough to strike the average correctly. His 
great strength was in his trusting the people instead 
of considering them as babes in arms. He did not 
profess to know everything. The audience admired 
Douglas, but they respected his simple-minded op- 
poneat 

Nothing so illustrates the fact that events are 
stronger than men, and that one attacking an evil 
can never commence using the little end of a club 
without changing very soon to the butt, than the 
position of Lincoln at this time. The Republican 
leaders, and Lincoln as well, were afraid of only one 
thing, and that was of having imputed to them any 
desire to abolish slavery. Douglas, in all the de- 
bates between himself and Lincoln, attempted to 
fasten Abolition upon him, and this it was Lincoln's 
chief desire to avoid. Great as he was, he had not 
then reached the point of declaring war upon slav- 



446 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM IINCOIN 

ery ; he could go no farther than to protest against 
its extension into the territories, and that was pressed 
in so mild and hesitating a way as to rob it of half 
its point. Did he foresee that within a few years 
the irresistible force of events would compel him to 
demand its extinction, and that his hand would sign 
the document that killed it? Loofic is miu-htier than 
man's reason. He did not realize that the reason 
for preventing its extension was the very best rea- 
son for its extinction. Anything that should be re- 
stricted should be killed. It took a war to bring 
about this conclusion. Liberty got its best growth 
from blood-stained fields. 

I met Lincoln again in 1859, ^^ Columbus, Ohio, 
where he made a speech, which was only a continua- 
ation of the Illinois debates of the year before. 
Douglas had been previously brought there by the 
Democracy, and Lincoln's speech was, in the main, 
an answer to Douglas. It is curious to note in this 
speech that Lincoln denied being in favor of negro 
suffrage, and took pains to go out of his way to 
affirm his support of the law of Illinois forbidding 
the intermarriage of whites and negroes. 

I asked him if such a denial was worth while, to 
which he replied: 

" The law means nothing. I shall never marry a 
negress, but I have no objection to any one else 
doing so. If a white man wants to marry a negro 



B Y DA VID R. LOCKE. 



447 



woman, let him do it — if the negro woman can 
stand itr 

By this time his vision had penetrated the future, 
and he had got a gHmmering of what was to come. 
In his soul he knew what he should have advocated, 
but he doubted if the people were ready for the 
great movement of a few years later. Hence his 
halting at all the half-way houses. 

"Slavery," said he, "is doomed, and that within a 
few years. Even Judge Douglas admits it to be an 
evil, and an evil can't stand discussion. In discuss- 
ing it we have taught a great many thousands of 
people to hate it who had never given it a thought 
before. What kills the skunk is the publicity it 
gives itself. What a skunk wants to do is to keep 
snug under the barn — in the day-time, when men 
are around with shot-guns." 

The discussions with Douglas made him the Re- 
publican nominee for the Presidency, and elected 
him President. 

The " Nasby Letters," which I began in 1861, 
attracted his attention, and he was very much pleased 
with them. He read them regularly. He kept a 
pamphlet which contained the first numbers of the 
series in a drawer in his table, and it was his wont 
to read them on all occasions to his visitors, no mat- 
ter who they might be, or what their business was. 
He seriously offended many of the great men of the 



448 REMliVISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Republican Party in this way. Grave and reverend 
Senators who came charged to the brim with impor- 
tant business — business on which the fate of the 
nation depended — took it ill that the President 
should postpone the consideration thereof while he 
read them a letter from " Saint's Rest, wich is in the 
state uv Noo Jersey," especially as grave statesmen, 
as a rule, do not understand humor, or comprehend 
its meaning or effect. 

Lincoln also seized eagerly upon everything that 
Orpheus C. Kerr wrote, and he knew it all by heart. 

It was in 1S63 that I received a letter from Lin- 
coln, which illustrates two points in his character ; 
viz., his reckless generosity, and the caution which 
followed close at its heels. 

This is the conclusion of the letter: 

" Why don't you come to Washington and see 
me ? Is there no place you want ? Come on and I 
will give you any place you ask for — tJiat you are 
capable of filling — and fit to fill.'' 

What led to this was, he had read a letter of mine 
which pleased him, and the generosity of his nature 
prompted him to write me to come and see him, and 
that was supplemented by an offer to give me any 
place I asked for. After he had finished the letter 
and added his signature, it occurred to him that to 
promise a man of whom he knew but little, except 
through the medium of the press, any place that he 



B Y DA VID R. LOCKE. 449 

might ask for, was rather risky. So he added a 
dash, and Hkewise the saving clause, " that yo?i are 
capable of filling''' and, to guard himself entirely, 
''that yott are fit to fill^ 

I did go and see him, but not to ask for a place. 
He gave me an hour of his time, and a delightful hour 
it was. The end of the terrible struggle was within 
sight, the country he loved so well had passed 
through the throes of internecine strife and demon- 
strated its right to live, and the great and good man 
was on the eve of passing from labor to reward. 
It was a fact that treason was more rampant at the 
North than ever ; that great dangers were still 
threatening ; but the army was actually an army, and 
the loyal sentiment of the North had shown that it 
could be depended upon. He bubbled over with 
good feeling ; he expressed a liking for my little 
work, which I have not the assurance to put upon 
paper, and I departed. 

I was in Washington once more in 1864, when 
the great struggle was nearer its close. My busi- 
ness was to secure a pardon for a young man from 
Ohio, who had deserted under rather peculiar cir- 
cumstances. When he enlisted he was under en- 
gagement to a young girl, and went to the front very 
certain of her faithfulness, as a young man should 
be, and he made a most excellent soldier, feeling 

that the inevitable " she " at home would be proud 

29 



450 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

of him. It is needless to say that the young girl, 
being exceptionally pretty, had another lover, whom 
she had rejected for the young volunteer, and also, 
it is needless to add, that the stay-at-home rejected 
hated the accepted soldier with the utmost cordial- 
ity. Taking advantage of the absence of the fa- 
vored lover, the discarded one renewed his suit 
with great vehemence, and rumors reached the 
young man at the front that his love had gone over 
to his enemy, and that he was in danger of losing 
her entirely. He immediately applied for a fur- 
lough, which was refused him, and half mad and 
reckless of consequences, deserted. He found the 
information he had received to be partially true, 
but he came in time. He married the girl, but was 
immediately arrested as a deserter, tried, found 
guilty, and sentenced to be shot. I stated the cir- 
cumstances, giving the young fellow a good char- 
acter, and the President at once signed a pardon. 

" I want to punish the young man — probably in 
less than a year he will wish I had withheld the 
pardon. We can't tell, though. I suppose when I 
was a young man I should have done the same fool 
thing." 

No man on earth hated blood as Lincoln did, and 
he seized eagerly upon any excuse to pardon a man 
when the charge could possibly justify it. The 
generals always wanted an execution carried out 



BV DAVID R. LOCKE. 45 I 

before it could possibly be brought before the Presi- 
dent. 

He was as tender-hearted as a girl. He asked 
me if the masses of the people of Ohio held him, in 
any way, personally responsible for the loss of their 
friends in the army. " It's a good thing for indi- 
viduals," he said, " that there's a government to 
shove over their acts upon. No man's shoulders 
are broad enough to bear what must be." 

The strifes and jars in the Republican Party at 
this time disturbed him more than anything else, but 
he avoided taking sides with any of the faction, 
with the dexterity that comes of simple honesty, 
which always finds the right road because it is look- 
ing for nothing else. I asked him why he did not 
take some pronounced position in one trying en- 
counter between two very prominent Republicans. 

" I learned," said he, " a great many years ago, 
that in a fight between man and wife, a third party 
should never get between the woman's skillet and 
the man's ax-helve." 

The name of a most virulent and dishonest official 
was mentioned, one who, though very brilliant, was 
very bad. 

'Tt's a big thing for B ," said Lincoln, "that 

there is such a thing as a death-bed repentance." 

The favorite poem of the President was, as is well 
known, "Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be 



452 REMIXISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

proud ? " A member of Congress from Ohio came 
into his presence in a state of unutterable intoxica- 
tion, and sinking into a chair, exclaimed in tones 
that welled up fuzzy through the gallon or more of 
whisky that he contained, " Oh, why should (hie) 
er spirit of mortal be proud ? " 

" My dear sir," said the President, regarding him 
closely, " I see no reason whatever." 

A prominent Senator was charged with an at- 
tempt to swindle the government out of some 
millions. The President said he could not under- 
stand why men should be so eager after wealth. 
"Wealth," said he, "is simply a superfluity of what 
we don't need." 

A few months after, the rebellion collapsed, the 
country rejoiced in the peace that had been so long 
hoped for but so long delayed, and Abraham Lin- 
coln was the world's hero. A few days later the 
bullet of a madman ended his career, and a world 
mourned. 

I saw him, or what was mortal of him, on the 
mournful progress to his last resting-place, in his 
coffin. The face was the same as in life. Death 
had not changed the kindly countenance in any line. 
There was upon it the same sad look that it had 
worn always, though not so intensely sad as it 
had been in life. It was as if the spirit had come 
back to the poor clay, reshaped the wonderfully 



BV DAVID R. LOCKE. 453 

sweet face, and given It an expression of gladness 
that he had finally gone "where the wicked cease 
from troubling, and the weary are at rest." The 
face had an expression of absolute content, of relief, 
at throwing off a burden such as few men have been 
called upon to bear — a burden which few men could 
have borne. I had seen the same expression on his 
living face only a few times, when, after a great 
calamity, he had come to a great victory. It was the 
look of a worn man suddenly relieved. 

Wilkes Booth did Abraham Lincoln the greatest 
service man could possibly do for him — he gave 
him peace. 

DAVID R. LOCKE. 



XXVI. 

Leonard Swett. 

MR. LINCOLN'S STORY OF HIS OWN LIFE. 

IN the autumn of 1849, ^ ^^as sitting with Judge 
David Davis in a small country hotel in Mt. 
Pulaski, Illinois, when a tall man, with a circular 
blue cloak thrown over his shoulders, entered one 
door of the room, and passing through without 
speaking, went out another. I w-as struck by his 
appearance. It was the first time I had ever seen 
him, and I said to Judge Davis, when he had gone, 
"Who is that?" "Why, don't you know him? 
That is Lincoln." In a few moments he returned, 
and, for the first time, I shook the hand and made 
the acquaintance of that man who since then has 
so wonderfully impressed himself upon the hearts 
and affections of mankind. 

The State of Illinois contained at that time in 
round numbers about 500,000 souls, and Chicago 
about 28,000 instead of 700,000 as now. The county 
seats of the State, now containing 5,000 and 20,000 
as a general rule, then contained 500 to 1,000, with 
a log court house and a log jail. The settlements in 



456 REMIXISCEN'CES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

the country skirted along the timber, the streams 
were without bridges, and the prairies were wholly 
unsettled. Dim roads or trails extended from one 
county seat to another, and the ordinary mode of 
travel was on horseback or, occasionally, in a buggy. 

We were then attending the circuit court, which 
circuit embraced fourteen counties. These courts 
commenced about the first of September and closed 
about Christmas, and commenced again about Feb- 
ruary and closed about June. The time allotted for 
holding court was from two to three days to a week 
at a place.* Mr. Lincoln had, just before that time, 
closed his only term in Congress, and had, when I 
met him, returned to his former life as a lawyer 
upon this, the Eighth Judicial Circuit. For eleven 
years thereafter we traversed this circuit together, 
the size of the circuit being diminished by the Leg- 
islature as the country increased in settlement ; 
staying at the same little country hotel, riding and 
driving together over the country, and trying suits 
together, or, more frequently, opposed to each other. 

In the fall of 1853, ^s I was riding with him in a 
buggy from De Witt County to Champaign, a dis- 
tance of about fifty miles, upon the business of at- 
tending this court, and as we were traversing a 
prairie some twelve or fifteen miles in width, and 
nearing Champaign, I said to Mr. Lincoln, " I have 
heard a great many curious incidents of your early 

* See Note, p. 468. 



BY LEONARD SWETT. 457 

life, and I would be obliged if you would begin at 
your earliest recollection and tell me the story of it 
continuously." The season and the surroundings 
seemed adapted to lazy story telling. The weather 
was the perfection of Indian summer time, and 
the tall grasses covered the prairie everywhere like 
ripened grain. Occasionally, a distant prairie fire 
filled the air with hazy smoke, the quail whistled to 
his mate, and, at times, the red deer started from the 
tall grasses of the dell as we passed along. I give 
this story as nearly as I can in the substance of his 
own language : 

" I can remember," he said, "our life in Kentucky; 
the cabin, the stinted living, the sale of our posses- 
sions, and the journey with my father and mother 
to Southern Indiana." 

I think he said he was then about six years old. 
Shortly after his arrival in Indiana his mother died. 

" It was pretty pinching times," he said, " at first 
in Indiana, getting the cabin built, and the clearing 
for the crops ; but presently we got reasonably com- 
fortable, and my father married again." 

He had very faint recollections of his own mother, 
he was so young when she died, but he spoke most 
kindly of her and of his step-mother, and of her care 
for him in providing for his wants. 

He told me of earning his first half dollar. Stand- 
ing upon the shore of a river a steamboat was passing 



458 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM UN CO IN 

along in the middle of the stream. Some one on 
board the boat called to him to come with a small 
boat. He went, took off a passenger, and was paid 
the half dollar. Afterwards, playing upon a flat- 
boat which was fastened so as to reach out into the 
stream, he dropped his half dollar from the farthest 
end of the boat. 

Said he, " I can see the quivering and shining of 
that half dollar yet, as in the quick current it went 
down the stream and sunk from my sight forever." 

" My father," he said, " had suffered greatly for 
the want of an education, and he determined at an 
early day that I should be well educated. And what 
do you think he said his ideas of a good education 
were ? We had an old do^-eared arithmetic in our 
house, and father determined that somehow, or some- 
how else, I should cipher clear through that book." 

With this standard of an education, he started to 
a school in a log-house in the neighborhood, and 
began his educational career. He had attended this 
school but about six weeks, however, when a calam- 
ity befell the father. He had endorsed some man's 
note in the neighborhood, for a considerable amount, 
and the prospect was he would have it to pay, and 
that would sweep away all their little possessions. 
His father, therefore, explained to him that he wanted 
to hire him out and receive the fruits of his labor, 
and his aid in averting this calamity. Accordingly, 




EARLY HOME OF LINCOLN, IN ILLINOIS. 



BY LEONARD SIVETT. 459 

at the expiration of six weeks, he left school, and 
never returned to it again. These six weeks, there- 
fore, constitute the entire sum of his education in 
school. From this time until he was about nineteen, 
he lived in Southern Indiana. He was a strong, 
athletic boy, good-natured, and ready to out-run, 
out-jump and out-wrestle or out-lift anybody in the 
neighborhood. There were in that vicinity a few 
books which he literally devoured — the Bible, Shakes- 
peare, Bunyan's Pilgrwis Progress, Weems' Life of 
Washington, Weems' Life of Marion, etc. He said 
to me that he had got hold of and read through 
every book he ever heard of in that country for a 
circuit of about fifty miles. 

At the age of nineteen his father sold out his 
possessions in Indiana, and loaded all their mova- 
ble goods upon a wagon, and Lincoln drove the 
oxen that hauled them upon this new migration west- 
ward. They arrived in Coles County, Illinois, about 
the month of August, and that fall built a cabin for 
the coming winter and broke land for a crop the 
next year. Lincoln's father gave him his time in 
the autumn of the next year, he coming of age the 
following February. It was a few months before he 
would be entitled to it by operation of law, and he 
started off into the world to seek his fortune. His 
step-mother tied up all his earthly possessions in a 
bundle, and Lincoln, running a stick through it where 



46o REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

the knot was tied, threw it over his shoulder, and 
started, with his father's and mother's blessing, upon 
a wonderful journey of life. 

It commenced along an old Indian trail from 
Coles to Macon County. See him, as he goes on 
foot through the grasses of the prairie — a tall, lithe, 
young man, a stick and a pack upon his back, start- 
ing out on that unknown journey which took him, 
first to be a rail-splitter, then to the captaincy of a 
flat-boat, then to the life of a little merchant, then to 
a captaincy in the Black Hawk War, to the county 
surveyorship of Sangamon County, to a membership 
in the legislature of the State, to the electorship at 
large for the State, to the championship of oratory 
for Henry Clay in 1844, to a membership in Con- 
gress, in 1846 to 1848, to a conceded position of 
leadership as a member of the bar in the State of 
Illinois, and, lastly, to the presidency and to martyr- 
dom in the country upon which he was then so 
humbly walking. 

Arriving at Macon County he found some cousins 
by the name of Hanks, and in connection with one 
of these young men, that winter took the job of 
splitting rails, at a fixed price per hundred. He 
worked about in this manner, for a year or more, 
when he drifted over the line of Macon into Sanga- 
mon County, and worked for some prominent farmer, 
whose name I have forgotten. 



BY LEONARD SIVETT. 46 I 

It was an easy task in those days, in Illinois, to 
raise products, but corn was worth only ten cents 
a bushel, and was sometimes used for fuel. If the 
products could only be marketed, liberal profits 
would arise. Hence Lincoln, while working there, 
conceived the idea of building a flat-boat upon the 
Sangamon River, running it down the Sangamon 
into the Illinois, down the Illinois to the Mississippi, 
and thence to New Orleans. This had never been 
done, and the apparent obstacle was a dam across 
the Sangamon River near Springfield. Lincoln had 
some device by which he thought this obstacle could 
be overcome. 

The enterprise being agreed upon, Mr. Lincoln 
felled, in the forest, the timber, and hewed the beams, 
built the boat, loaded it with provisions, and was then 
elected to his first office, which was the captaincy of 
that flat-boat. The crew consisted of Lincoln, himself 
the Captain, and one or two other men. The dam 
was successfully passed at high water by some device 
I have forgotten, and Lincoln passed down the 
Illinois and the Mississippi to New Orleans, sold 
his cargo there, and worked his passage back by 
assisting in firing on a steamboat. Since his assas- 
sination I have seen and conversed with one of the 
captains of a boat upon which he thus worked his 
passage coming back. 

On the occasion of one of these passages, in the 



462 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LIN CO IN 

vicinity of Natchez, a negro came very near smash- 
ing the head of the future emancipator of his race. 
The boat one night was tied up to the shore and 
the crew asleep below. A noise being heard Cap- 
tain Lincoln came up, and just as his head emerged 
through the hatchway, a negro, who was pilfering, 
struck him a blow with a heavy stick, but the point 
of the stick reached over his head, and struck the 
floor beyond, at the same time, thus lightening the 
blow on his head, but making a scar which he wore 
always, and which he showed me at the time of 
telling this story. 

After his experience in flat-boating, which lasted 
two or three years, Lincoln resided for awhile in the 
town of New Salem, in Sangamon County. Here 
he was employed as a clerk in a store, and after- 
ward became a partner. I remember well his ex- 
pression in describing that little store, which con- 
tained a very few goods of various kinds. Turning 
to me he said, " I reckon that was the store-keep- 
ing." A difference, however, soon arose between 
him and the old proprietor, the present partner of 
Lincoln, in reference to the introduction of whiskey 
into the establishment. The partner insisted that, 
on the principle that honey catches flies, a barrel of 
whiskey in the store would invite custom, and their 
sales would increase, while Lincoln, who never liked 
liquor, opposed this innovation. He told me, not 



BY LEONARD SWETT. 463 

more than a year before he was elected President, 
that he had never tasted Hquor in his Hfe. " What ! " 
I said, "do you mean to say you never tasted it?" 
" Yes, I never tasted it." The result was that a bar- 
gain was made by which Lincoln should retire from 
his partnership in the store. He was to step out as 
he stepped in. He had nothing when he stepped in, 
and he had nothing when he stepped out. But the 
partner took all the goods, and agreed to pay all the 
debts, for a part of which Mr. Lincoln had become 
jointly liable. 

About this time, the Black Hawk War broke out. 
Black Hawk, an Indian chief near Rock Island, had 
committed some depredations upon the whites, and 
the inhabitants of the State becoming exasperated, 
formed companies and joined the nucleus of officers 
and soldiers of the regular army, and marched 
together to Rock Island, and then marched back 
again. This was about all there was to the war. A 
company was raised and organized at New Salem. 

During Lincoln's youth he had everywhere been 
distinguished as the crowning athlete of the neigh- 
borhood in which he lived. Everywhere along the 
frontier, since that frontier has marched from the 
east westward, some fellow in every neighborhood 
had been " cock of the walk," who could out-wrestle, 
out-run, and out-jump everybody. Lincoln was that 
person wherever he lived in early life. He was that 



464 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

boy when young in Indiana, and afterward in New 
Salem he made a hero of himself by wrestling, 
running, jumping, lifting, and other innocent amuse- 
ments of that character. He was six feet three and 
a-half inches tall, long-armed, long-limbed, brawny- 
handed, with no superfluous flesh, toughened by 
labor in the open air, of perfect health, and his grip 
was like the grip of Hercules. 

Together with the talk of organizing a company 
in New Salem, began the talk of making Lincoln 
captain of it. His characteristics as an athlete had 
made something of a hero of him. Turning to me 
with a smile at the time, he said, " I cannot tell 
you how much the idea of being the captain of that 
company pleased me." 

But when the day of organization arrived, a man 
who had been captain of a real company arrived 
in his uniform, and assumed the organization of the 
company. The mode of it was as follows : A line of 
two was formed by the company, with the parties 
who intended to be candidates for officers standing 
in front. The candidate for captain then made a 
speech to the men, telling them what a gallant man 
he was, in what wars he had fought, bled and died, 
and how he was ready again, for the glory of his 
country, to lead them. Then another candidate ; 
and when the speech-making was ended, they com- 
manded those who would vote for this man, or that. 



BY LEONARD SWETT. 465 

to form a line behind their favorite. Thus there 
were one, two or three Hnes behind the different 
men, as there were different candidates, and then 
they counted back, and the fellow who had the 
longest tail to his kite, was the real captain. It was 
a good way. There was no chance for ballot-box 
stuffing or a false count. 

When the real captain with his regimentals came 
and assumed the control, Lincoln's heart failed him. 
He formed in the line with the boys,' and after the 
speech was made they began to form behind the 
old captain, but the boys seized Lincoln, and pushed 
him out of the line, and began to form behind him, 
and cried form behind " Abe," and in a moment of 
irresolution he marched ahead, and when they 
counted back he had two more than the other cap- 
tain, and he became real captain. 

Whatever was to be done in this war, Lincoln 
did well, as we may infer from the facts which 
succeeded his return. As he returned home, he 
found his old partner had been his own best cus- 
tomer at that whiskey barrel, and that all the goods 
were gone, but having failed to pay the debts, there 
were eleven hundred dollars for which Lincoln was 
jointly liable. I cannot forget his face of serious- 
ness as he turned to me and said, " That debt was 
the greatest obstacle I have ever met in life ; I had 

no way of speculating, and could not earn money 
30 



466 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

except by labor, and to earn by labor eleven hundred 
dollars, besides my living, seemed the work of a 
lifetime. There was, however, but one way. I went 
to the creditors and told" them that if they would 
let me alone, I would give them all I could earn, 
over my living, as fast as I could earn it." 

Providence is often kinder than our fears. About 
this time events of this character occurred in Lin- 
coln's life. He had previously borrowed some books 
and learned something of surveying, and upon his 
return from the war, was employed in the County 
Surveyor's office of the County of Sangamon, and 
for four years thereafter was elected member of the 
State legislature. 

" At that time," said he, " members of the legis- 
lature got four dollars a day, and four dollars a 
day was more than I had ever earned in my life." 

With an economical mode of life which he knew 
so well, he succeeded, with what he saved in winter, 
at the legislature, and what he earned in the sum- 
mer as surveyor, in paying what he called " the 
national debt." 

The life, in the legislature, with politicians de- 
veloped the natural gift he had for public speak- 
ing, and that legislature, in which he was celebrated, 
is to-day remembered in Illinois as the legislature 
of the " long nine," of which Lincoln was one, 
each of the nine being more than six feet tall. 



BY LEON A an SWETT. 



467 



Although deficient in education acquired at school, 
life was to him a school, and he was always study- 
ing and mastering every subject which came be- 
fore him. He knew how to dig out any question 
from its very roots, and when his own children 
began to go to school, he studied with them, and 
acquired in mature life the elements of an educa- 
tion. I have seen him myself, upon the circuit, 
with "a geometry," or "an astronomy," or some 
book of that kind, working out propositions in 
moments of leisure, or acquiring the information 
that is generally acquired in boyhood. He is the 
only man I have ever known to bridge back thor- 
oughly in the matter of spelling. There are but 
very few college graduates who spell as well as Mr. 
Lincoln spelled. 

At the close of his term in the legislature he was 
persuaded to move to Springfield and study law. 
John T. Stuart, a most eminent lawyer in the State, 
loaned him books, and William Butler, still remem- 
bered as State Treasurer of the State, loaned him 
money and board, and he immediately commenced 
studying and practicing law. He rose in his profession 
with great rapidity, and soon became distinguished 
as a leader in it. He was also a leader of the Whig 
party in the State, and canvassed it in 1840. Again, 
with distinguished ability, he was the champion of 
Henry Clay in 1844, was elevated to Congress in 



468 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

1846, and in 1848, having made a canvass for Presi- 
dent Taylor, returned upon the circuit, to the prac- 
tice of the law, where I first met him, as described. 

Mr. Lincoln told this story as the story of a happy 
childhood. There was nothing sad nor pinched, and 
nothing of want, and no allusions to want, in any part 
of it. His own description of his youth was that of 
a joyous, happy boyhood. It was told with mirth 
and glee, and illustrated by pointed anecdote, often 
interrupted by his jocund laugh which echoed over 
the prairies. His biographers have given to his 
early life the spirit of suffering and want, and as 
one reads them, he feels like tossing him pennies 
for his relief. Mr. Lincoln gave no such description, 
nor is such description true. His was just such life 
as has always existed and now exists in the frontier 
States, and such boys are not suffering, but are 
rather like Whittier's " Barefoot boy with cheeks 
of tan," and I doubt not Mr. Lincoln in after-life 
would gladly have exchanged the pleasures of grati- 
fied ambition and of power for those hours of 
happy contentment and rest. 

LEONARD SWETT. 

^NOTE. — The courts referred to, on page 456, were presided over by David 
Davis, who was the judge from 1849 "i^til 1S62, when he left the bench for 
the Supreme Court of the United Stales, to which post Mr. Lincoln had 
appointment. Ward W. Lamar was the prosecuting attorney for the last 
five or six years, and also travelled the circuit. 




iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiM^^^ 



XXVII. 

Walt Whitman. 

GLAD am I to give even the most brief and 
shorn testimony in memory of Abraham Lin- 
coln. Everything I heard about him authentically, 
and every time I saw him (and it was my fortune 
through 1862 to '65 to see, or pass a word with, or 
watch him, personally, perhaps twenty or thirty 
times^), added to and annealed my respect and love 

* From my Note-book in 1864, at Washington City, I find this memorandum, 
under date of August 12 : 

I see the President almost every day, as I happen to live where he passes to 
or from his lodgings out of town. He never sleeps at the White House during 
the hot season, but has quarters at a healthy location, some three miles north of 
the city, the Soldiers' Home, a United States military establishment. I saw 
him this morning about 8.30 coming in to business, riding on Vermont Avenue, 
near L Street. He always has a company of twenty-five or thirty cavalry, with 
sabres drawn, and held upright over their shoulders. The party makes no great 
show in uniforms or horses. Mr. Lincoln, on the saddle, generally rides a 
good-sized, easy-going gray horse, is dress'd in plain black, somewhat rusty 
and dusty ; wears a black stiff hat, and looks about as ordinary in attire, &c., as 
the commonest man. A lieutenant, with yellow straps, rides at his left, and 
following behmd, two by two, come the cavalry men in their yellow-striped 
jackets. They are generally going at a slow trot, as that is the pace set them 
by the One they wait upon. The sabres and accoutrements clank, and the en- 
tirely unornamental cortege as it trots toward Lafayette Square arouses no sen- 
sation, only some curious stranger stops and gazes. I see very plainly Abraham 



470 



REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



at the passing moment. And as I dwell on what 
I myself heard or saw of the mighty Westerner, and 
blend It with the history and literature of my age, 
and of what I can get of all ages, and conclude 
it with his death, it seems like some tragic play, 
superior to all else I know — vaster and fierier and 
more convulslonary, for this America of ours, than 
Eschylus or Shakspeare ever drew for Athens or for 
England. And then the Moral permeating, under- 
lying all ! the Lesson that none so remote, none so 
illiterate — no age, no class — but may directly or In- 
directly read ! 

Lincoln's dark brown face, with the deep cut lines, the eyes, &c., always to me 
with a latent sadness in the expression. We have got so that we always ex- 
change bows, and very cordial ones. 

Sometimes the President goes and comes in an open barouche. The cavalry 
always accompany him, with drawn sabres. Often I notice as he goes out 
evenings — and sometimes in the morning, when he returns early — he turns off 
and halts at the large and handsome residence of the Secretary of War on K 
Street, and holds conference there. If in his barouche, I can see from my win- 
dow he does not alight, but sits in the vehicle, and Mr. Stanton comes out to 
attend him. Sometimes one of his sons, a boy of ten or twelve, accompanies 
him, riding at his right on a pony. 

Earlier in the summer I occasionally saw the President and his wife, toward 
the latter part of the afternoon, out in a barouche, on a pleasure ride through 
the city. Mrs. Lincoln was dressed in complete black, with a long crape veil. 
The equipage is of the plainest kind, only two horses, and they nothing extra. 
They pass'd me once very close, and I saw the President in the face fully, as 
they were moving slow, and his look, though abstracted, happen'd to be di- 
rected steadily in my eye. He bow'd and smiled, but far beneath his smile I 
noticed well the expression I have alluded to. None of the artists or pictures 
have caught the subtle and indirect expression of this man's face. One of the 
great portrait painters of two or three centuries ago is needed. 




ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



BY WALT WHITMAN. 47 1 

Abraham Lincoln's was really one of those char- 
acters, the best of which is the result of long trains 
of cause and effect — needing a certain spaciousness 
of time, and perhaps even remoteness, to properly 
enclose them — having unequaled influence on the 
shaping of this Republic (and therefore the world) 
as to-day, and then far more important in the future. 
Thus the time has by no means yet come for a thor- 
oueh measurement of him. Nevertheless, we who live 
in his era — who have seen him, and heard him, face 
to face, and are in the midst of, or just parting from, 
the strong: and strange events which he and we have 
had to do with, can in some respects bear valuable, 
perhaps indispensable testimony concerning him. 

I should first like to give what I call a very fair 
and characteristic likeness of Lincoln, as I saw him 
and watched him one afternoon in Washington, for 
nearly half an hour, not long before his death. It 
was as he stood on the balcony of the National 
Hotel, Pennsylvania Avenue, making a short speech 
to the crowd in front, on the occasion either of a set 
of new colors presented to a famous Illinois regiment, 
or of the daring capture, by the Western men, of 
some flags from " the enemy," (which latter phrase, 
by the by, was not used by him at all in his remarks.) 
How the picture happened to be made I do not 
know, but I bought it a few days afterward in 
Washington, and it was endorsed by every one 



472 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

to whom I showed it. Though hundreds of por- 
traits have been made, by painters and photogra- 
phers (many to pass on, by copies, to future times), 
I have never seen one yet that in my opinion de- 
served to be called a perfectly good likeness ; nor do 
I believe there is really such a one in existence. 
May I not say too, that, as there is no entirely com- 
petent and emblematic likeness of Abraham Lincoln 
in picture or statue, there is not — perhaps cannot 
be — any fully appropriate literary statement or sum- 
ming-up of him, yet in existence. 

The best way to estimate the value of Lincoln is 
to think what the condition of America would be to- 
day, if he had never lived — never been President. 
His nomination and first election were mainly acci- 
dents, experiments. Severely viewed, one cannot 
think very much of American Political Parties, from 
the beginning, after the Revolutionary War, down 
to the present time. Doubtless, while they have had 
their uses — have been and are " the grass on which 
the cow feeds " — and indispensable economies of 
growth — it is undeniable that under flippant names 
they have merely identified tem.porary passions, or 
freaks, or sometimes prejudice, ignorance, or hatred. 
The only thing like a great and worthy idea vitaliz- 
ing a party and making it heroic was the enthusiasm 
in '64 for re-electing Abraham Lincoln, and the rea- 
son behind that enthusiasm. 



BY WALT WHITMAN. 473 

How does this man compare with the acknowl- 
edged "Father of his country?" Washington was 
modeled on the best Saxon and Franklin of the age 
of the Stuarts (rooted in the Elizabethan period) — 
was essentially a noble Englishman, and just the 
kind needed for the occasions and the times of 1776- 
'^2)- Lincoln, underneath his practicality, was far 
less European, far more Western, original, essen- 
tially non-conventional, and had a certain sort of 
out-door or prairie stamp. One of the best of 
the late commentators on Shakespeare (Professor 
Dowden), makes the height and aggregate of 
his quality as a poet to be, that he thoroughly 
blended the ideal with the practical or realistic. If 
this be so, I should say that what Shakespeare did 
in poetic expression, Abraham Lincoln essentially 
did in his personal and official life. I should say 
the invisible foundations and vertebra of his char- 
acter, more than any man's in history, were mystical, 
abstract, moral and spiritual — while upon all of them 
was built, and out of all of them radiated, under the 
control of the average of circumstances, what the vul- 
gar call horse-sense, and a life often bent by temporary 
but most urgent materialistic and political reasons. 

He seems to have been a man of indomitable 
firmness (even obstinacy) on rare occasions, involv- 
ing great points ; but he was generally very easy, 
flexible, tolerant, respecting minor matters. I note 



474 REMIiVISCEA'CES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

that even those reports and anecdotes intended to 
level him down, all leave the tinge of a favorable 
impression of him. As to his religious nature, it 
seems to me to have certainly been of the amplest, 
deepest-rooted kind. 

But I do not care to dwell on the features pre- 
sented so many times, and that will readily occur to 
every one in recalling Abraham Lincoln and his era. 
It is more from the wish — and it no doubt actuates 
others — to bring for our own sake, some record, 
however incompetent — some leaf or little wreath to 
place, as on a grave. 

Already a new generation begins to tread the 
stage, since the persons and events of the Secession 
War. I have more than once fancied to myself the 
time when the present century has closed and a new 
one opened, and the men and deeds of that contest 
have become vague and mythical — fancied perhaps 
in some great Western city, or group collected 
together, or public festival, where the days of old, of 
1863 and '4 and '5 are discussed — some ancient sol- 
dier sitting in the backo;round as the talk o-oes on, 
and betraying himself by his em.otion and moist eyes 
— like the journeying Ithacan at the banquet of 
King Alcinoiis, when the bard sings the contending 
warriors, and their battles on the plains of Troy; 

" So from the sluices of Ulysses' eyes, 
Fast fell the tears, and sighs succeeded sighs." 



BY WALT WHITMAN. 475 

I have fancied, I say, some such venerable reHc of 
this time of ours, preserved to the next or still the 
next generation of America. I have fancied on 
such occasion, the young men gathering around ; the 
awe, the eager questions. " What ! have you seen 
Abraham Lincoln — and heard him speak — and 
touched his hand ? Have you, with your own eyes, 
looked on Grant, and Lee and Sherman ? " 

Dear to Democracy, to the very last ! And 
among the paradoxes generated by America not the 
least curious, was that spectacle of all the kings and 
queens and emperors of the earth, many from re- 
mote distances, sending tributes of condolence and 
sorrow in memory of one raised through the com- 
monest average of life — a rail-splitter and flat-boat- 
man ! 

Considered from contemporary points of view — 
who knows what the future may decide ? — and from 
the points of view of current Democracy and The 
Union (the only thing like passion or infatuation in 
the man was the passion for the Union of These 
States), Abraham Lincoln seems to me the grandest 
figure yet, on all the crowded canvas of the Nine- 
teenth Century. 

WALT WHITMAN. 



XXVIII. 

DoNN Piatt. 

No greater truth found expression in poetic 
words than that which Sir Henry Taylor 
puts in the speech of PhiHp Van Artevelde, when 
he says, " the world knows not its greatest men." 
The poet restricted his meaning to 

" The kings of thought, 
Who wage contention with their time's decay, 
And of the past are all that will not pass away. 

But it extends, as well, to those men of affairs who 
earn the admiration of the crowd they control. 
This ignorance comes of the fact that great men 
have enemies while alive, and friends when dead ; 
and, between the two, the objects of hate and love 
pass into historical phantoms far more unreal than 
their ghosts are supposed to be. With us, when a 
leader dies, all good men go to lying about him, and 
from the monument that covers his remains to the 
last echo of the rural press, in speeches, sermons, 
eulogies and reminiscences, we have naught but 
pious lies. There is no tyranny so despotic as that 
of public opinion among a free people. The rule 



47^ REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

of the majority is to the last extent exacting and 
brutal. When brought to bear upon our eminent 
men, it is also senseless. Poor Garfield, with his 
sensitive temperament, was almost driven to suicide 
by abuse while alive. He fell by the shot of an as- 
sassin, and passed in an instant to the roll of popu- 
lar saints. One day it was contempt to say a word 
in his favor, the next it was dangerous to repeat any 
of the old abuse. 

History is, after all, the crystallization of popular 
beliefs. As a pleasant fiction is more acceptable 
than a naked fact, and as the historian shapes his 
wares, like any other dealer, to suit his customers, 
one can readily see that our chronicles are only a 
duller sort of fiction than the popular novels so 
eagerly read ; not that they are true, but they deal 
in what we long to have — the truth. Popular beliefs, 
in time, come to be superstitions, and create gods 
and devils. Thus Washington is deified into an im- 
possible man, and Aaron Burr has passed into a like 
impossible human monster. Through the same pro- 
cess Abraham Lincoln, one of our truly great, has 
almost gone from human knowledge. I hear of him, 
read of him in eulogies and biographies, and fail to 
recognize the man I encountered, for the first time, 
in the canvass that called him from private life to be 
President of the then disuniting United States. 

General Robert E. Schenck and I had been 



BY BONN PIATT. aJq 

selected to canvass Southern Illinois in behalf of 
free soil and Abraham Lincoln. That part of Illi- 
nois was then known as Egypt, and in our mission- 
ary labors we learned there that the American eagle 
sometimes lays rotten eggs. Our labors on the 
stump were closed in the wigwam at Springfield a 
few nights previous to the election. Mr. Lincoln 
was present, and listened, with intense interest, to 
General Schenck's able argument. I followed in a 
cheerful review of the situation, that seemed to 
amuse the crowd, and none more so than our can- 
didate for the Presidency. We were both invited 
to return to Springfield, at the jubilee, should suc- 
cess make such rejoicing proper. We did return, 
for this homely son of toil was elected, and we 
found Springfield drunk with delight. On the day 
of our arrival we were invited to a supper at the 
house of the President-elect. It was a plain, com- 
fortable frame structure, and the supper was an old- 
fashioned mess of indigestion, composed mainly of 
cake, pies and chickens, the last evidently killed in 
the morning, to be eaten, as best they might, that 
evening. 

After the supper, we sat, far into the night, talk- 
ing over the situation. Mr. Lincoln was the home- 
liest man I ever saw. His body seemed to me a 
huge skeleton in clothes. Tall as he was, his hands 
and feet looked out of proportion, so long and 



480 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

clumsy were they, Every movement was awkward 
In the extreme. He sat with one legf thrown over 
the other, and the pendent foot swung almost to the 
floor. And all the while, two little boys, his sons, 
clambered over those legs, patted his cheeks, pulled 
his nose, and poked their fingers in his eyes, with- 
out causing reprimand or even notice. He had a 
face that defied artistic skill to soften or idealize. 
The multiplicity of photographs and engravings 
makes it familiar to the public. It was capable of 
few expressions, but those were extremely striking. 
When in repose, his face was dull, heavy and repel- 
lent. It brightened, like a lit lantern, when ani- 
mated. His dull eyes would fairly sparkle with fun, 
or express as kindly a look as I ever saw, when 
moved by some matter of human interest. 

I soon discovered that this strange and strangely 
gifted man, while not at all cynical, was a sceptic. 
His view of human nature was low, but good- 
natured. I could not call it suspicious, but he be- 
lieved only what he saw. This low estimate of 
humanity blinded him to the South. He could not 
understand that men would get up in their wrath 
and fight for an idea. He considered the move- 
ment South as a sort of political game of bluff, got- 
ten up by politicians, and meant solely to frighten 
the North. He believed that, when the leaders saw 
their efforts in that direction were unavailing, the 



B Y DONN PI A TT. ^g I 

tumult would subside. " They won't give up the 
offices," I remember he said, and added, " were it 
believed that vacant places could be had at the 
North Pole, the road there would be lined with 
dead Virginians." He unconsciously accepted, for 
himself and party, the same low line that he awarded 
the South. Expressing no sympathy for the slave, 
he laughed at the Abolitionists as a disturbing ele- 
ment easily controlled, and without showing any 
dislike to the slave-holders, said only that their am- 
bition was to be restrained. 

I gathered more of this from what Mrs. Lincoln 
said than from the utterances of our host. This 
good lady injected remarks into the conversation 
with more force than logic, and was treated by her 
husband with about the same good-natured indiffer- 
ence with which he regarded the troublesome boys. 
In the wife's talk of the coming administration 
there was an amusing assumption that struck me 
as very womanly, but somewhat ludicrous. For in- 
stance, she said, " The country will find how we re- 
gard that abolition sneak, Seward ! " Mr. Lincoln 
put the remarks aside, very much as he did the hand 
of one of his boys when that hand invaded his ca- 
pacious mouth. 

We were not at a loss to get at the fact, and the 

reason for it, in the man before us. Descended 

from the poor whites of a slave State, through many 
31 



482 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

generations, he inherited the contempt, if not the 
hatred, held by that class for the negro. A self- 
made man, with scarcely a winter's schooling from 
books, his strong nature was built on what he inher- 
ited, and he could no more feel a sympathy for 
that wretched race than he could for the horse he 
worked or the hog he killed. In this he exhibited 
the marked trait that governed his public life. He 
never rose above the mass he influenced, and was 
strong with the people from the fact that he accom- 
panied the commons without any attempt to lead, 
save in the direction they sought to follow. He 
knew, and saw clearly, that the people of the free 
States had, not only, no sympathy with the abolition 
of slavery, but held fanatics, as Abolitionists were 
called, in utter abhorrence. While it seemed a 
cheap philanthropy, and therefore popular, to free an- 
other man's slave, the fact was that it was not an- 
other man's slave. The unrequited toil of the slave 
was more valuable to the North than to the South. 
With our keen business instincts, we of the free 
States utilized the brutal work of the masters. They 
made, without saving, all that we accumulated. 
The Abolitionist was hunted and imprisoned under 
the shadow of the Bunker Hill Monument as keenly 
as he was tracked by bloodhounds at the South. 
Wendell Phillips, the silver-tongued advocate of 
human rights, was, while Mr. Lincoln talked to us. 



B Y BONN PIA TT. 483 

being ostracized at Boston and rotten-egged at Cin- 
cinnati. A keen knowledge of human nature in a 
jury, more than a knowledge of law, in his case, had 
put our President-elect at the head of his profession, 
and this same knowledge made him master of the 
situation when he came to mold into action the 
stirred impulses of the people. 

I felt myself studying this strange, quaint, great 
man with keen interest. A newly fashioned individ- 
uality had come within the circle of my observation. 
I saw a man of coarse, rough fiber, without culture, 
and yet of such force that every observation was 
original, incisive and striking, while his illustrations 
were as quaint as ^sop's fables. He had little taste 
for, and less knowledge of, literature, and while well 
up in what we call history, limited his acquaintance 
with fiction to that somber poem known as "Why 
should the spirit of mortal be proud ? " 

It was well for us that our President proved to be 
what I then recognized. He was equal to the awful 
strain put upon him in the four years of terrible 
strife that followed. A man of delicate mold and 
sympathetic nature, such as Chase or Seward, would 
have broken down, not from overwork, although 
that was terrible, but from the over-anxiety that 
kills. Lincoln had none of this. He faced and lived 
through the awful responsibility of the situation with 
the high courage and comfort that came of indiffer- 



484 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

ence. At the darkest period, for us, of the war, 
when the enemy's cannon were throbbing in its roar 
along the walls of our Capitol, I heard him say to 
General Schenck, " I enjoy my rations, and sleep the 
sleep of the innocent." 

Mr. Lincoln did not believe, could not be made to 
believe, that the South meant secession and war. 
When I told him, subsequently to this conversation, 
at a dinner-table in Chicago, where the Hon. Han- 
nibal Hamlin, General Schenck, and others were 
guests, that the Southern people were in dead ear- 
nest, meant war, and I doubted whether he would be 
inaugurated at Washington, he laughed and said the 
fall of pork at Cincinnati had affected me. I became 
somewhat irritated, and told him that in ninety days 
the land would be whitened with tents. He said in 
reply, "Well, we won't jump that ditch until we 
come to it," and then, after a pause, he added, " I 
must run the machine as I find it." I take no credit 
to myself for this power of prophecy. I only 
said what every one acquainted with the Southern 
people knew, and the wonder is that Mr, Lin- 
coln should have been so blind to the coming 
storm. 

The epigrammatic force of his expressions was 
remarkable for the singular purity of his words. 
What he said was so original that I reduced much 
of it to writinjjf at the time. One of these was this, 



BY DONN PIATT. 485 

on secession : "If our Southern friends are right in 
their claim, the framers of the government carefully 
planned the rot that now threatens their work with 
destruction. If one State has the right, at will, to 
withdraw, certainly a majority have the right, and we 
have the result given us of the States being able to 
force out one State. That is logical." 

We remained at Springfield several days, and then 
accompanied the President-elect, on his invitation, 
to Chicago. The invitation was so pressing that 
I believed Mr. Lincoln intended calling General 
Schenck to his Cabinet. I am still of this opinion, 
and attribute the change to certain low intrigues 
hatched at Chicago by the newly created politicians 
of that locality, who saw in the coming adminis- 
tration opportunities for plunder that Robert E. 
Schenck's known probity would have blasted. 

Subsequent to the supper we had gatherings at 
Mr. Lincoln's old law office, and at the political 
head-quarters, at which men only formed the com- 
pany ; and before those good honest citizens, who 
fairly worshiped their distinguished neighbor, Mr. 
Lincoln gave way to his natural bent for fun, and 
told very amusing stories, always in quaint illustra- 
tion of the subject under discussion, no one of which 
will bear printing. They were coarse, and were 
saved from vulgarity only by being so strangely in 
point, and told not for the sake of the telling, as 



486 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

if he enjoyed the stones themselves, but that they 
were, as I have said, so quaintly illustrative. 

The man who could open a Cabinet meeting called 
to discuss the Emancipation Proclamation by read- 
ing Artemus Ward, who called for a comic song on 
the bloody battle-field, was the same man who could 
guide with clear mind and iron hand the diplomacy 
that kept off the fatal interference of Europe, while 
conducting at home the most horrible of all civil 
wars that ever afflicted a people. He reached with 
ease the highest and the lowest level, and on the 
very field that he shamed with a ribald song he left 
a record of eloquence never reached by human lips 
before. 

There is a popular belief that Abraham Lincoln 
was of so kind and forgiving a nature that his gen- 
tler impulses interfered with his duty. In proof of 
thi^, attention is called to the fact that through all 
the war he never permitted a man to be shot for de- 
sertion. The belief is erroneous. There never lived 
a man who could say "no" with easier facility, and 
abide by his saying with more firmness, than Presi- 
dent Lincoln. His sfood-natured manner misled the 
common mind. It covered as firm a character as 
nature ever clad with human flesh, and I doubt 
whether Mr. Lincoln had at all a kind, forgiving 
nature. Such traits are not common to successful 
leaders. They, like Hannibal, melt their way 



BV BONN PIATT. 487 

through rocks with hot vinegar, not honey. And 
that good-natured way more generally covers a self- 
ish than a generous disposition. Men instinctively 
find it easier to glide comfortably through life with a 
round, oily, elastic exterior, than in an angular, hard 
one. Such give way in trifles and hold their own 
adversely in all the more serious sacrifices of self to 
the good or comfort of others. If one doubts what 
I here assert, let such turn and study the hard, angu- 
lar, coarse face of this great man. Nature never 
gave that as an indication of a tender, yielding dis- 
position. Nor had his habits of life in any respect 
softened its hard lines. " Hazlitt tells us, with truth, 
that while we may control the voice, and discipline 
the manner, the face is beyond command. Day and 
night, waking and sleeping, our character is being 
traced there, to be read by all men who care to 
make the face a study. It is common, for example, 
for the President to be in continual trouble over sup- 
posed promises to office-seekers. Mr. Lincoln had 
none of this. He would refuse so clearly and posi- 
tively that it left no doubt and no hope, and yet in 
such a pleasant manner that the applicant left with 
no ill feeling in his disappointment. I heard Secre- 
^tary Seward say, in this connection, that President 
Lincoln "had a cunning that was genius." As for 
his steady refusal to sanction the death penalty in 
cases of desertion, there was far more policy in the 



488 KEMIXISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

course than kind feeling. To assert the contrary 
is to detract from Lincoln's force of character as 
well as intellect. As Secretary Chase said at the 
time, " such kindness to the criminal is cruelty to 
the army, for it encourages the bad to leave the 
brave and patriotic unsupported." The fact is that 
our war President was not lost in his high admira- 
tion of brigadiers and major-generals, and had a 
positive dislike for their methods and the despotism 
on which an army is based. He knew that he was 
dependent on volunteers for soldiers, and to force 
on such the stern discipline of the regular army was 
to render the service unpopular. And it pleased 
him to be the source of mercy, as well as the fount- 
ain of honor, in this direction. 

I was sitting with General Dan Tyler, of Connec- 
ticut, in the antechamber of the War Department, 
shortly after the adjournment of the Buell court of 
inquiry, of which we had been members, when 
President Lincoln came in from the room of Secre- 
tary Stanton. Seeing us, he said : " Well, gentlemen, 
you did not survive the war, and now have you any 
matter worth reporting, after such a protracted in- 
vestigation ?" "I think so, Mr. President," replied 
General Tyler. " We had it proven that Bragg, with 
less than ten thousand men, drove your eighty-three 
thousand under Buell back from before Chattanooga, 
down to the Ohio at Louisville, marched round us 



BY BONN PIATT. 489 

twice, then doubled us up at Perryville, and finally 
got out of Kentucky with all his plunder." " Now, 
Tyler," said the President, " what is the meaning of 
all this ; what is the lesson ? Don't our men march 
as well, and fight as well, as these rebels? If not, 
there is a fault somewhere. We are all of the same 
family — same sort." " Yes, there is a lesson," replied 
General Tyler. " We are of the same sort, but sub- 
ject to a different handling. Bragg's little force was 
superior to our larger number, because he had it 
under control. If a man left his ranks, he was pun- 
ished ; if he deserted, he was shot. We had nothing 
of that sort. If we attempt to shoot a deserter, you 
pardon him, and our army is without discipline." 
The President looked perplexed. " Why do you in- 
terfere ?" General Tyler continued. " Congress has 
taken from you all responsibility." " Yes," answered 
the President impatiently, " Congress has taken the 
responsibility, and left the women to howl about 
me ; " and so he strode away, and General Tyler re- 
marked that, as it was not necessary for the Presi- 
dent to see one of these women, to jeopard an army 
on such grounds was very feeble. The fact was, 
however, as I have said, the President had other 
and stronger motives for his conduct. 

Of President Lincoln's high sense of justice, or 
rather fair play, I have a vivid recollection. Previous 
to Lee's invasion of Pennsylvania, rumors of which 



490 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

reached Washington in advance of that suicidal move- 
ment on the part of the Confederates, General Hal- 
leck issued one of his non-committal orders to Gen- 
eral Schenck, then in command at Baltimore, advising 
the concentration of our troops at Harper's Ferry. 
This referred especially to General Milroy's 10,000 
men at Winchester. I was sent, as chief of staff, to 
look into Milroy's condition, and empowered to let 
him remain or order him back, as I might see fit. 
Winchester, as a fortified place, was a military blun- 
der. It covered nothing, while a force there was in 
constant peril. I had learned enough in the service 
to know that a subordinate should take no chances, 
and I ordered Milroy back to Harper's Ferry. Gen- 
eral Schenck, at Milroy's earnest request, counter- 
manded my order, and three days after Milroy found 
himself surrounded by Lee's entire army. The gal- 
lant old soldier cut his way out, with his entire com- 
mand. Of course there was a heavy loss of material. 
For this Milroy was put under arrest by Secretary 
Stanton, and court-martialed by Halleck. Milroy 
shielded himself behind Schenck's order, so that the 
court convened was really trying my general without 
the advantages given him, as defendant, of being 
heard in his defense. General Schenck was sum- 
moned to appear, and instead of appearing drew up 
a protest, that he directed me not only to take to the 
President, but read to him, fearing the protest would 



BY DON FIATT. 



491 



be pigeon-holed for consideration when consideration 
would be too late. It was late in the afternoon, and 
riding to the White House, I was told the President 
could be found at the War Department. I met him 
coming out, and delivered my message. '* Let me see 
the protest," said the President as we walked toward 
the Executive Mansion. " General Schenck ordered 
me, Mr. President, to read it to you." " Well, I can 
read," he responded sharply, and as he was General 
Schenck's superior officer I handed him the paper. 
He read as he strode along. Arriving at the en- 
trance to the White House, we found the carriage 
awaiting to carry him to the Soldiers' Home, where 
he was then spending the summer, and the guard de- 
tailed to escort him drawn up in front. The Presi- 
dent sat down upon the steps of the porch, and con- 
tinued his study of the protest. I have him photo- 
graphed on my mind, as he sat there, and a strange 
picture he presented. His long, slender legs were 
drawn up until his knees were level with his chin, 
while his long arms held the paper, which he studied 
regardless of the crowd before him. He read on to 
the end, then, looking up, said : " Piatt, don't you 
think that you and Schenck are squealing, like pigs, 
before you're hurt?" " No, Mr. President." " Why, 
I, am the Court of Appeal," he continued, " and do 
you think I am going to have an injustice done 
Schenck ?" " Before the appeal can be heard, a sol- 



492 



REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



dier's reputation will be blasted by a packed court," 
I responded. "Come, now," he exclaimed, an ugly 
look shading his face, "you and I are lawyers, and 
know the meaning of the word * packed.' I don't 
want to hear it from your lips again. What's the 
matter with the court?" "It is illegally organized 
by General Halleck." " Halleck's act is mine." " I 
beg your pardon, Mr. President, the Rules and Reg- 
ulations direct that in cases of this sort you shall 
select the court ; you cannot delegate that to a sub- 
ordinate any more than you can the pardoning 
power," and opening the book I pointed to the ar- 
ticle. " That is a point," he said, slowly rising. " Do 
you know, Colonel, that I have been so busy with 
this war I have never read the Regulations. Give 
me that book, and I'll study them to-night." " I beg 
your pardon, Mr. President," I said, giving him the 
book, " but in the mean time my general will be put 
under arrest for disobedience, and the mischief will 
be done." " That's so," he replied. " Here, give 
me a pencil," and tearing off a corner of the paper 
General Schenck had sent him, he wrote : " All pro- 
ceedings before the court convened to try General 
Milroy are suspended until further orders. — A. Lin- 
coln." The next morning I clanked into the court- 
room with my triangular order, and had the grim 
satisfaction of seeing the owls in epaulets file out, 
never to be called again. 



B V BONN PIA TT. 493 

With all his awkwardness of manner, and utter dis- 
regard of social conventionalities that seemed to in- 
vite familiarity, there was something about Abraham 
Lincoln that enforced respect. No man presumed 
on the apparent invitation to be other than respect- 
ful. I was told at Springfield that this accompanied 
him through life. Among his rough associates, when 
young, he was leader, looked up to and obeyed, be- 
cause they felt of his muscle and his readiness in its 
use. Among his associates at the bar, it was attrib- 
uted to his ready wit, which kept his duller associ- 
ates at a distance. The fact was, however, that this 
power came from a sense of a reserve force of intel- 
lectual ability that no one took account of, save in 
its results. Through one of those freaks of nature 
that produce a Shakespeare at long intervals, a 
giant had been born to the poor whites of Kentucky, 
and the sense of superiority possessed President 
Lincoln at all times. Unobtruding and even unas- 
suming as he was, he was not modest in his asser- 
tion, and he as quietly directed Seward in shaping 
our delicate and difficult foreign policy as he con- 
trolled Chase in the Treasury and Edwin M. Stan- 
ton in the War Department. These men, great as 
they were, felt their inferiority to their master, and 
while all three were eaten into and weakened by 
anxiety, he ate and slept and jested as if his shoul- 
ders did not carry. Atlas-like, the fate of an empire. 



494 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

I never saw him angry but once, and I had no 
wish to see a second exhibition of his wrath. We 
were in command of what was called the Middle 
Department, with head-quarters at Baltimore. Gen- 
eral Schenck, with that intense loyalty which distin- 
guished this eminent soldier, shifted the military 
sympathy from the aristocracy of Maryland to the 
Union men, and made the eloquent Henry Winter 
Davis and the well-known jurist Judge Bond our as- 
sociates and advisers. These gentlemen could not 
understand why, having such entire command of 
Maryland, the government did not make it a free 
State, and so, taking the property from the disloyal, 
render them weak and harmless, and bring the bor- 
der of free States to the capital of the Union. The 
fortifications about Baltimore, used heretofore to 
threaten that city, now, under the influence of Davis, 
Bond, Wallace, and others, had their guns turned out- 
ward for the protection of the place, and it seemed 
only necessary to inspire the negroes with a faith 
in us as liberators to perfect the work. The first in- 
timation I received that this policy of freeing Mary- 
land was distasteful to the administration came from 
Secretary Stanton. I had told him what we thought, 
and what we hoped to accomplish. I noticed an 
amused expression on the face of the War Secretary, 
and when I ended he said dryly, " You and Schenck 
had better attend to your own business." I asked 



BY DONN PIATT. 495 

him what he meant by " our business." He said, 
" Obeying orders, that's all." 

Not long after this talk with Mr. Stanton, the gal- 
lant General William Birney, son of the eminent 
James G. Birney, came into Maryland to recruit for 
a negro brigade, then first authorized. I directed 
Birney to recruit slaves only. He said he would be 
glad to do so, but wanted authority in writing from 
General Schenck. I tried my general, and he re- 
fused, saying that such authority could come only 
from the War Department, as Birney was acting di- 
rectly under its instructions. I could not move him, 
and knowing that he had a leave of absence for a 
few days, to transact some business at Boston, I 
waited patiently until he was fairly off, and then is- 
sued the order to General Birney. The General 
took an idle government steamer, and left for the 
part of Maryland where slaves were most abundant. 
Birney was scarcely out of sight before I awakened 
to the opposition I had excited. The Hon. Rev- 
erdy Johnson appeared at head-quarters, heading a 
deleo-ation of solid citizens who wanted the Union 
and slavery saved, one and inseparable. I gave 
them scant comfort, and they left for Washington. 
That afternoon came a telegram from the War De- 
partment, asking who was in command at Baltimore. 
I responded that General Schenck, being absent for 
a few days only, had left affairs in control of his 



496 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

chief of staff. Then came a curt summons, order- 
ing me to appear at the War Department. I obeyed, 
arrivino- in the eveninc: at the old, somber build- 
ing. Being informed that the Secretary was at the 
Executive Mansion, I repaired there, sent in my 
card, and was at once shown into the presence, not 
of Mr. Stanton, but of the President. I do not care 
to recall the words of Mr. Lincoln. I wrote them 
out that night, for I was threatened a shameful dis- 
missal from the service, and I intended appealing to 
the public. They were exceedingly severe, for the 
President was in a rage. I was not allowed a word 
in my own defense, and was only permitted to say 
that I would countermand my order as well as I 
could. I was saved cashiering through the interfer- 
ence of Stanton and Chase, and the further fact that 
a row over such a transaction at that time would 
have been extremely awkward. 

My one act made Maryland a free State. Word 
went out, and spread like wildfire, that " Mr. Lin- 
kum was a callin' on de slaves to fight foh freedum," 
and the hoe-handle was dropped, never again to be 
taken up by unrequited toil. The poor creatures 
poured into Baltimore with their families, on foot, 
on horseback, in old wagons, and even on sleds 
stolen from their masters. The late masters became 
clamorous for compensation, and Mr. Lincoln or- 
dered a commission to assess damages. Secretary 



BY BONN PIATT. 497 

Stanton put in a proviso that those cases only 
should be considered where the claimant could take 
the iron-bound oath of allegiance. Of course no 
slaves were paid for. 

The President never forgave me. Subsequently, 
when General Schenck resigned command to take 
his seat in Congress, the Union men of Maryland 
and Delaware, headed by Judge Bond, waited on the 
President with a request that I be promoted to briga- 
dier-general and put in command of the Middle De- 
partment. Mr. Lincoln heard them patiently, and 
then refused, saying, " Schenck and Piatt are good 
fellows, and if there were any rotten apples in the 
barrel they'd be sure to hook 'em out. But they run 
their machine on too high a level for me. They 
never could understand that I was boss." Edwin 
M. Stanton told me, after he left the War Depart- 
ment, that when he sent a list of officers to the 
President, my name included, as worthy promotion, 
Lincoln would quietly draw his pen through my 
name. I do not blame him. His great, thoughtful 
brain saw at the time what has taken years for us to 
discover and appreciate. He understood the people 
he held to a death struggle in behalf of the great 
Republic, and knew that, while the masses would 
fight to the bitter end in behalf of the Union, they 
would not kill their own brothers, and spread mourn- 
ing over the entire land, in behalf of the negro. He 
32 



498 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

therefore kept the cause of the Union to the front, 
and wrote to Horace Greeley the memorable words : 
"If to preserve the Union it is necessary to destroy 
slavery, slavery will be destroyed ; and if to preserve 
the Union slavery is to be maintained, slavery will 
be maintained." He well knew that the North was 
not fighting to liberate slaves, nor the South to 
preserve slavery. The people of the slave States 
plunged into a bloody war to build a Southern em- 
pire of their own, and the people of the North 
fought to preserve the government of the fathers on 
all the land the fathers left us. In that awful con- 
flict slavery went to pieces. 

We are quick to forget the facts and slow to 
recognize the truths that knock from us our preten- 
tious claims to a high philanthropy. As I have said, 
abolitionism was not only unpopular when the war 
broke out, but it was detested. The minority that 
elected Mr. Lincoln had fallen heir to the Whig 
votes of the North, and while pledging itself, in plat- 
forms and speeches, to a solemn resolve to keep 
slavery under the Constitution in the States, re- 
stricted its antislavery purpose to the prevention of 
its spread into the Territories. I remember when 
the Hutchinsons were driven from the camps of the 
Potomac Army by the soldiers for singing their abo- 
lition songs, and I remember well that for two years 
nearly of our service as soldiers we were engaged in 



BY BONN PIATT, 499 

returning slaves to their masters, when the poor 
creatures sought shelter in our lines. 

President Lincoln's patriotism and wisdom rose 
above impulse, or his positive temperament and in- 
tellect kept him free of mere sentiment. Looking 
back now at this grand man, and the grave situation 
at the time, I am ashamed of my act of insubordina- 
tion, and although it freed Maryland it now lowers 
me in my own estimation. Had the President car- 
ried his threat of punishment into execution, it would 
have been just. 

The popular mind is slow of study, and I fear it 
will be long ere it learns that, while an eminent man 
wins our admiration through his great qualities, he 
can hold our love only from his human weaknesses 
that make him one of ourselves. We are told that, 
with the multitude, nothing is so successful as suc- 
cess, yet there is often more heroism in failure than 
in triumph. The one is frequently the result of acci- 
dent, while the other holds in itself all that endears 
the martyr to the human heart. The unfortunate 
Hector is, after all, the hero of the Iliad, and not the 
invulnerable Achilles, and by our popular process of 
eliminating all human weakness from our great men 
we weaken, and in a measure destroy, their immor- 
tality, for we destroy them. As we accept the sad, 
rugged, homely face, and love it for what it is, we 
should accept it as it was, the grandest figure loom- 



500 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

ing Up in our history as a nation. Washington 
taught the world to know us, Lincoln taught us to 
know ourselves. The first won for us our independ- 
ence, the last wrought out our manhood and self- 
respect. 

DONN PIATT. 



XXIX. 

E. W. Andrews. 

ONE morning, early in the spring of 1863, a 
middle-aged lady appeared at the garrison 
gate of Fort McHenry, and applied for permission 
to visit head-quarters. 

This was some time after the battle fought at 
Nashville, Tennessee, where our troops were vic- 
torious under the command of General Franklin. 

The lady's request was sent up to head-quarters 
by the officer of the guard. At that time, I was 
chief of staff to General W. W. Morris, of the 
regular army, then commanding the defenses of 
Baltimore. Representing my chief, who was absent, 
I granted the lady's request. 

Her appearance, as she entered head-quarters, in- 
spired every one with the deepest interest, for, with 
the calm self-possession and distinguished bearing 
of an accomplished lady, there was an expression of 
profound sadness in her face which appealed touch- 
ingly to every heart. 

She told me her story with modest dignity. She 
was a widow, she said, and resided near Nashville, 



502 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Tennessee, but, although a native of that State, she 
had no sympathy with the rebellion. She had an 
only son. At the outbreak of the war he was a 
student in a Southern college. Without her knowl- 
edge or consent he enlisted in a rebel regiment, and 
was severely wounded at the battle of Nashville, 
taken prisoner, and carried North. 

The day after the battle, to her great astonish- 
ment and grief, she first heard of these facts. She 
at once applied to the commanding general for leave 
to eo through the lines and follow her son. Leave 
was granted. She first found her son at Louisville, 
then followed him to Wheeling, West Virginia, and 
thence to Fort McHenry, Baltimore. Here he was 
placed in the garrison hospital. 

The mother desired the privilege of seeing her 
son in order to learn his present condition, and to 
furnish him any little comforts he might need which 
were not supplied under army regulations. 

Only a short time before, an order had been re- 
ceived from the War Department prohibiting all 
intercourse between citizens and prisoners of war. 

I expressed my regret that, under this order, I must 
deny her request, but assured her that she should be 
fully informed as to her son's condition, and have 
permission to send him anything for his comfort that 
the post surgeon should approve of. 

The post surgeon was sent for, but said that he 



BY E. W. ANDREWS. 503 

had not personally examined the case of this special 
prisoner, but added that she might go with him to 
his office in the hospital, and he would make in- 
quiries. She went, and learned that her son's wound 
had been aggravated by his journey from Wheeling, 
but that with rest and careful treatment he was cer- 
tain to recover. 

To remove all doubts from her mind as to the 
comforts furnished patients who were our prison- 
ers of war, the surgeon said to her, as she arose 
to go: 

" Let me show you, madam, one or two of our 
prisoners' wards, so that you may see for yourself 
how our government provides for the sick and 
wounded of the enemy who are captured." 

Gladly the mother accepted the invitation. Hardly 
had they entered, when the lady, descrying her boy 
through a half-open door in an adjoining room, 
rushed from the surgeon's side. Rapidly following 
her, he saw "a scene," which, he said, "was too 
sacred to interrupt." The mother was on her knees 
by the cot of her pale and emaciated boy, exclaim- 
ing, as she clasped him to her bosom : 

" Oh ! my blessed child ! I imist see you if I die 
for it!" 

The kind-hearted surgeon turned away and left 
the mother and son undisturbed. 

Soon the lady returned to the waiting officer, her 



504 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

face suffused with tears, but beaming with hope and 
joy, as she said : 

" Oh, sir! my blessed boy is sorry he entered the 
army, and wishes to give his parole and leave the 
Confederate service forever. Will the authorities 
permit him to do this ? Can I go again to head- 
quarters ? " 

They came together to head-quarters. She ap- 
proached me with a look of mingled fear and exulta- 
tion that greatly puzzled me ; but she recounted all 
that had occurred at the hospital with perfect frank- 
ness, and said : 

" If I have done wrong, punish me ; but I could 
not help it." 

Of course I did not utter a word of censure, but 
in answer to her request to have her son paroled, I 
told her that this power was vested in the President 
or Secretary of War alone, and advised her to go to 
Washington and appeal to Secretary Stanton. 

The next day she went, taking with her a letter 
of introduction to the Commissary-General of Pris- 
oners. 

In two days she returned to Fort Henry, disap- 
pointed and crushed in heart at the treatment she 
had received from Secretary Stanton. She told me 
her story. 

" I took your note of introduction to General 
Hoffman," she said, " and he kindly spoke to the 



BYE. W. ANDREWS. 505 

Secretary of my purpose in visiting Washington, 
and afterward he went with me and introduced me 
at the War Department. 

" As we entered the Secretary's office, Mr. Stan- 
ton was writins: at his desk. General Hoffman said : 

" ' Mr. Secretary, this is the lady I spoke to you 
about. She wishes to consult you about releasing 
her son, who is a prisoner of war, wounded, in the 
hospital at Fort Henry.' The General then turned 
and left the room. I was standing near the door of 
the office. Mr. Stanton never looked at me nor 
spoke. After a minute or two the Secretary turned 
round in his chair, and abruptly, in a severe tone, 
said : 

" ' So, yotc are the woman who has a son prisoner 
of war in Fort McHenry.' " 

" ' I am so unfortunate,' I said. 

" The Secretary then answered in a still louder 
and sterner tone of voice, leaving me standing all 
the time : 

" ' I have nothing to say to you, and no time to 
waste on you. If you have raised up sons to rebel 
against the best government under the sun, you and 
they must take the consequences.' 

" I attempted to say to him," continued the lady, 
"that my son was a mere boy, scarcely seventeen 
years old, and had entered the Confederate service 
without my knowledge or approval, but before I had 



506 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOIN 

uttered five words he fairly yelled at me, as if in an 
insane rage : 

" ' I don't want to hear a word from you. I've no 
time to waste on you. I want you to go at once. 
I'll do nothing for you.' 

" I left," she said, " and am thankful I got out of 
Washington alive. Oh ! why are such men intrusted 
with power ?" 

And she sobbed as if her heart would break. 

After a brief silence, I asked her if she could go 
to Washington again ? 

" What ! to see that man ? No, sir ! Not for all 
Washington," she exclaimed, before she had given a 
moment for explanation. 

After ascertaining that the necessary action would 
not be hampered by poverty — that she had means 
enough to pay traveling expenses — I drew up, next 
day, a paper addressed to the President, concisely 
stating the case, and asking a parole for the boy. 
She signed it ; the surgeon certified it. She was ad- 
vised to call on the President, and given directions 
how and when to get an interview. 

After an absence of three days, she returned to 
Fort McHenry. As she approached the desk of the 
ofiicer commanding, tears glistened in her eyes, but 
they were tears of gratitude. Her whole counte- 
nance was luminous with joy. Handing to me the 
same official envelope which had inclosed the docu- 



BY E. W. ANDREWS. ^O/ 

ment prepared for her to present to the President, 
she pointed to an order written in pencil upon it, 
and exclaimed with deep emotion : 

" My boy is free ! Thank God for such a Presi- 
dent ! He is the soul of goodness and honor !" 

The order was as follows : 

''Executive Mansion, | 
March 13, 1863. ) 

" To the Commandant at Fort Mc Henry : 

" General : — You will deliver to the bearer, Mrs. 
Winston, her son, now held a prisoner of war in 
Fort McHenry, and permit her to take him where 
she will, upon his taking the proper parole never 
again to take up arms against the United States. 

"ABRAHAM LINCOLN." 

I asked her how the President received her when 
she met him ? 

"With the kindness of a brother," she replied. 
"When I was ushered into his presence he was 
alone. He immediately arose, and, pointing to a 
chair by his side, said : 

" ' Take this seat, madam, and then tell me what I 
. can do for you.' 

" I took the envelope, and asked him if he would 
read the inclosures." 

" * Certainly,' he said, and he proceeded to read the 
statements I had signed very deliberately. When he 



5o8 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

had finished reading it he turned to me, and, with 
emotion, he said : 

'' ' Are you, madam, the unhappy mother of this 
wounded and imprisoned son ?' 

" ' I am,' I said. 

" ' And do you beheve he will honor his parole if 
I permit him to take it and go with you ? ' 

" * I am ready, Mr. President, to peril my personal 
liberty upon it,' I replied. 

" * You shall have your boy, my dear madam,' he 
said. * To take him from the ranks of rebellion and 
give him to a loyal mother is a better investment for 
this government than to give him up to its deadly 
enemies.' 

"■ Then, taking the envelope, he wrote with his 
own pencil the order which you see upon it. As he 
handed it to me he said : 

" ' There ! Give that to the commandinof officer 
of Fort McHenry, and you will be permitted to take 
your son with you where you will ; and God grant 
he may prove a great blessing to you and an honor 
to his country.'" 

It need hardly be added, that the young prisoner 
was soon removed from the garrison ; and, under the 
tender nursing of this heroic and devoted mother, 
was able, after a few months, to resume his studies 
in one of our Northern colleges. A beautiful and 
most touching letter, subsequently received at Fort 



BY E. W. ANDREWS, 



509 



McHenry frcm Mrs. Winston, expressed, in touch- 
ing terms, her gratitude and that of her son to all 
who had rendered her aid in that hour of her great 
trial. 

The National Cemetery at Gettysburg was dedi- 
cated on the 17th of November, 1863. Shortly be- 
fore the dedication was to take place the President 
sent an invitation to my chief, General W. W. 
Morris, and his staff, to join him at Baltimore and 
accompany him on his special train to Gettysburg. 
General Morris was sick at the time, and requested 
me, as his chief of staff, to represent him on that 
occasion. The General was suffering from one of 
^the troubles which tried the patience of Job. 

On the day appointed, therefore, I presented my- 
self, with two other members of the staff, to Presi- 
dent Lincoln, on his arrival at Baltimore, and offered 
the apology of my chief for his absence. 

After cordially greeting us and directing us to 
make ourselves comfortable, the President, with 
quizzical expression, turned to Montgomery Blair 
(then Postmaster-General), and said : 

" Blair, did you ever know that fright has some- 
times proved a sure cure for boils ?" 

" No, Mr. President. How is that?" 

" I'll tell you. Not long ago, when Colonel 

, with his cavalry, was at the front, and the 

Rebs were making things rather lively for us, the 



5IO REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

colonel was ordered out on a rccoiinaissance. He 
was troubled at the time with a big boil where 
it made horseback riding decidedly uncomfortable. 
He hadn't gone more than two or three miles 
when he declared he couldn't stand it any longer, 
and dismounted and ordered the troops forward 
without him. He had just settled down to enjoy 
his relief from change of position when he was 
startled by the rapid reports of pistols and the 
helter-skelter approach of his troops in full retreat 
before a yelling rebel force. He forgot everything 
but the yells, sprang into his saddle, and made capi- 
tal time over fences and ditches till safe within the 
lines. The pain from his boil was gone, and the 
boil too, and the colonel swore that there was no 
cure for boils so sure as fright from rebel yells, and 
that the secession had rendered to loyalty one valu- 
able service at any rate." 

During the ride to Gettysburg the President 
placed every one who approached him at his ease, 
relating numerous stories, some of them laughable, 
and others of a character that deeply touched the 
hearts of his listeners. 

I remember well his reply to a gentleman who 
stated that his " only son fell on * Little Round 
Top ' at Gettysburg, and I am going to look at 
the spot." 

President Lincoln replied : 



BY E. W. ANDRE WS. c^ I I 

"You have been qalled upon to make a terrible 
sacrifice for the Union, and a visit to that spot, I fear, 
will open your wounds afresh. But oh ! my dear 
sir, if we had reached the end of such sacrifices, and 
had nothing left for us to do but to place garlands 
on the graves of those who have already fallen, we 
could give thanks even amidst our tears ; but when 
I think of the sacrifices of life yet to be offered and 
the hearts and homes yet to be made desolate be- 
fore this dreadful war, so wickedly forced upon us, 
is over, my heart is like lead within me, and I feel, 
at times, like hiding in deep darkness." 

At one of the stopping-places of the train, a very 
beautiful little child, having a bouquet of rose-buds 
in her hand, was lifted up to an open window of 
the President's car. With a childish lisp she said : 
" Flowrth for the President ! " 

The President stepped to the window, took the 
rose-buds, bent down and kissed the child, saying : 

" You're a sweet little rose-bud yourself. I hope 
your life will open into perpetual beauty and good- 
ness." 

We had taken with us from Fort Mc Henry the 
Second United States Artillery band, one of the 
oldest and finest of the army. 

After our arrival at "Gettysburg, two gentlemen, 
who represented themselves as members of the 
Committee of Arrangements, applied to me for this 



512 



REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



band to serenade the President and the several Gov- 
ernors of States who had arrived. 

The band was placed at their disposal and the 
serenades given. But, presently, information was 
given me that, for some reason, Governor Seymour, 
of New York, had been omitted in the serenades. 
After ascertaining that the information was correct, 
I resolved that this omission should be corrected, 
whether it had resulted from a mistake or a delib- 
erate intention, and that the New York troops at 
least, who were a majority of those present, and 
were from "the defenses of Baltimore," should have 
an opportunity to join in a serenade of their beloved 
Governor, the soldiers' friend. 

Accordingly, arrangements having been made for 
the presence of the band, and liberty having been 
given to the members of the several commands 
from " the defenses of Baltimore" to be present, at 
about ten o'clock in the evening a crowd of thou- 
sands of citizens and soldiers had assembled in 
front of and around the Governor's quarters. 

The nicrht was clear and deliorhtful, and the moon- 
light rested in beauty on the town and the sur- 
rounding scenery. The band seemed inspired by 
the scene and the occasion, and played exquisitely 
a number of their sweetest and most appropriate airs. 

At length, at a pause in the music, the Governor 
stepped out on the balcony. Instantly cheers burst 



BY E. W. ANDREWS. 



513 



from the vast multitude, as hearty, long-continued, 
and soul-stirring as ever found utterance from en- 
thusiastic hearts. 

When silence was restored, the Governor, evi- 
dently laboring under deep emotion, commenced an 
address which held enchained his great audience 
from beginning to end. I had listened to the elo- 
quence of Governor Seymour on other occasions, but 
now he seemed to rise into the empyrean of the 
inspired orator. Never were sentiments of loftier 
patriotism uttered. 

And when, with touching pathos, the Governor 
addressed the citizens and soldiers before him, and 
told them of the deep and tender anxiety felt for 
them by loved ones they had left behind, and how 
their prayers and the prayers of millions of loyal 
hearts were constantly ascending to Heaven for 
their success and safe return ; and then spoke of the 
thousands of cheeks still wet with falling tears for 
husbands, fathers, brothers, sons, now sleeping in 
the graves on yonder hill-side, I doubt if a dry eye 
could have been found in that vast thronof of en- 
thralled listeners. And when he closed, for a mo- 
ment there was profound silence, and not till he 
turned to leave the balcony did the pent-up feelings 
of the deeply affected crowd break forth ; when in 
the wildest cheers, and cries of " God bless Gov- 
ernor Seymour," and " Long live the Union," the 
33 



514 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

thousands of hearts, " both by tumultuous rapture 
and tender sympathy swayed," found such utterance 
as has rarely been awarded to the eloquence of man. 

President Lincoln, on learning the next morning 
of the occasion of the demonstration late the night 
before, said to me : 

" I am glad Governor Seymour was specially 
honored. He deserves it. No man has shown 
greater interest and promptness in his co-operation 
with us. The New York soldiers may well admire 
and honor him." 

The ceremonies of the dedication were imposing 
and most interesting. The great procession, civic 
and military, the splendid music, the impressive re- 
ligious exercises, the great oration by Edward 
Everett (the last public effort of his life), the dedi- 
cation, of the ground chosen, in an address by Presi- 
dent Lincoln, of beauty and pathos never surpassed 
— all amidst the scenes where thousands but re- 
cently had freely offered up their lives for the life of 
the Republic — made the day one to be remembered 
as lonof as our Union shall last. 

Around the platform, on which the addresses were 
delivered, the military were formed in hollow square 
several ranks deep. Inside of this square, and but 
a few feet from the platform, I had my position, and 
thus enjoyed the best opportunities to see and hear. 

The oration of Mr. Everett, although, perhaps, 



BY E. W. ANDREWS. 515 

not equal in rhetorical beauty and lofty eloquence 
to some of his previous efforts, was rich in historical 
instruction and glowing with patriotic sentiment, and 
was received with great applause. 

At length, and in the name of the American Re- 
public, the President came forward formally to dedi- 
cate the place, which had drank so freely of the life- 
blood of her sons, as their peaceful resting-place till 
time should be no more, pledging the fidelity and 
honor and power of the government to its preser- 
vation for this sacred purpose while that govern- 
ment should last. 

A description of the President's famous address is 
needless ; it has already become a classic ; it is im- 
possible to conceive of anything more beautiful and 
appropriate for the occasion. 

But I may say a word of the appearance of the 
orator. 

President Lincoln was so put together physically 
that, to him, gracefulness of movement was an im- 
possibility. But his awkwardness was lost sight of 
in the interest which the expression of his face and 
what he said awakened. 

On this occasion he came out before the vast as- 
sembly, and stepped slowly to the front of the plat- 
form, with his hands clasped before him, his natural 
sadness of expression deepened, his head bent for- 
ward, and his eyes cast to the ground. 



ri6 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

In this attitude he stood for a few seconds, silent, 
as if communing with his own thoughts ; and when 
he began to speak, and throughout his entire ad- 
dress, his manner indicated no consciousness of the 
presence of tens of thousands hanging on his lips, 
but rather of one who, like the prophet of old, was 
overmastered by some unseen spirit of the scene, 
and passively gave utterance to the memories, the 
feelings, the counsels and the prophecies with which 
he was inspired. 

In his whole appearance, as well as in his wonder- 
ful utterances, there was such evidence of a wisdom 
and purity and benevolence and moral grandeur, 
higher and beyond the reach of ordinary men, that 
the great assembly listened almost awe-struck as to 
a voice from the divine oracle. 

I was still on duty in " the defenses of Balti- 
more " when the Presidential campaign of 1864 oc- 
curred. I had been a life-long Democrat, and I 
favored the election of General McClellan, the can- 
didate of my party. 

One evening in September, 1864, I was invited by 
a few friends to go with them to a Democratic meet- 
inor, and listen to a distinoruished orator who was to 
advocate the claims of McClellan. As I could not 
well refuse, I agreed to go for a few minutes only. 
To my surprise and annoyance, I was called on by 
the audience for a speech, and the calls were so per- 



BY E. W. ANDRE WS. 5 I 7 

sistent that I was placed in a most embarrassing 
position. Forced to say something, I contented my- 
self with a brief expression of my high regard for 
McClellan as a soldier, and a statement of my in- 
tention to vote for him. I made no reference of Mr. 
Lincoln, and soon left the hall. 

Next day an order came from Secretary Stanton 
directing- me to be mustered out of the service. No 
reason was assigned, nor opportunity given for de- 
fense. As I was and had always been an unwavering 
Union man, as I had a brother and three sons in the 
military service of the Union, and as I had learned 
that my action at the meeting when reported to 
Secretary Stanton had made him very angry and 
caused him to utter severe threats against me, I 
determined to go, and did go, to Washington to 
know the reason of this attempt to disgrace me. As 
no other pretext could be given for such action, I 
resolved to appeal to the President. 

I gave my papers setting forth these facts into the 
hands of a personal friend, a Republican member 
of Congress, with the request that he would ask 
Mr. Lincoln whether the revocation of my commis- 
sion was by his order, knowledge or consent. He 
did so. 

The President immediately replied : " I know noth- 
ing about it. Of course Stanton does a thousand 
things in his official character which I can know 



ci8 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

nothing about, and which it is not necessary that I 
should know anything about." 

Having heard the case, he then added : " Well, 
that's no reason. Andrews has as good a right to 
hold on to his Democracy, if he chooses, as Stanton 
had to throw his overboard. If I should muster out 
all my generals who avow themselves Democrats there 
would be a sad thinning out of commanding officers 
in the army. No !" he continued, "when the military 
duties of a soldier are fully and faithfully performed, 
he can manage his politics in his own way ; we've 
no more to do with tJicm than with his religion. Tell 
this officer he can return to his post, and if there is 
no other or better reason for the order of Stanton 
than the one he suspects, it shall do him no harm ; 
the commission he holds will remain as ofood as new. 
Supporting General McClellan for the Presidency 
is no violation of army regulations, and as a question 
of taste of choosing between him and me, well, I'm 
the longest, but he's better looking." 

And so I resumed my service, and was never 
afterward molested by the Secretary of War. 

E. W. ANDREWS. 



XXX. 

James C. Welling. 

THE Emancipation Proclamation is the most 
signal fact in the administration of President 
Lincoln. It marks, indeed, the sharp and abrupt 
beo-innine of "the Great Divide," which, since the 
upheaval produced by the late civil war, has sepa- 
rated the polity and politics of the ante-bellum period 
from the polity and politics of the post-bellum era. 
No other act of Mr. Lincoln's has been so warmly 
praised on the one hand, or so warmly denounced 
on the other ; and perhaps it has sometimes been 
equally misunderstood, in its real nature and bear- 
incr, by those who have praised it and those who 
have denounced it. The domestic institution against 
which it was leveled having now passed as finally 
into the domain of history as the slavery of Greece 
and Rome, it would seem that the time has come 
when we can review this act of Mr. Lincoln's in the 
calm liofht of reason, without serious disturbance 
from the illusions of fancy or the distortions of 
prejudice. 

In order to give precision and definiteness to the 



520 



REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



inquiry here taken, it seems necessary, at the thresh- 
old, to distinguish the true purport and operation of 
the Emancipation Proclamation from some things 
with which it is often confounded in popular speech. 
In the first place, it is proper to say that the procla- 
mation, in its inception and in its motive, had noth- 
ing to do with the employment of slaves as laborers 
in the army. Fugitive slaves were so employed 
lone before the utterance of such a manifesto had 
been contemplated, or the thought of it tolerated by 
the President. Just as little was the proclamation a 
necessary condition precedent to the enlistment of 
fugitive slaves as soldiers in the army. Mr. Lincoln 
was averse to the employment of negroes as soldiers 
at the time he issued the preliminary proclamation 
of September 22, 1862, and he remained in this 
state of mind until the final edict was issued on the 
first of January following. It was not until the 20th 
of January, 1863, that Governor Andrew, of Mas- 
sachusetts, received permission to make an experi- 
ment in this direction. 

We learn from the diary of Mr. Secretary Chase, 
that at a meeting of the Cabinet held on the 21st of 
July, 1862, the President "determined to take some 
definite steps in respect to military action and 
slavery." A letter from General Hunter having 
been submitted, in which he asked for authority to 
enlist " all loyal persons, without reference to com- 



BY JAMES C. WELLING. 521 

plexion," it appears that Messrs. Stanton, Seward 
and Chase advocated the proposition, and no one in 
the Cabinet spoke against it ; but, adds Mr. Chase, 
" the President expressed himself as averse to arm- 
ino- neo-roes." On the next day the question of 
arming slaves was again brought up, and Mr. Chase 
" advocated it warmly ; " but the President was still 
unwilling to adopt this measure, and proposed sim- 
ply to issue a proclamation based on the Confiscation 
act of July 17, 1862, "calling on the States to return 
to their allegiance, and warning the rebels that the 
provisions of that act would have full force at the 
expiration of sixty days ; adding, on his own part, a 
declaration of his intention to renew at the next 
session of Congress his recommendation of compen- 
sation to States adopting the gradual abolishment 
of slavery, and proclaiming the emancipation of all 
slaves within States remaining in insurrection on the 
ist of January. 1863."* So the first intimation 
made to the Cabinet of a purpose to proclaim the 
liberation of slaves in the insurgent States, was 
made in connection with the President's avowed 
opposition to the arming of negroes. 

Writing from memory, Mr. Secretary Welles 
states, in his History of Emancipation, that the 
President, " early in August " — he thinks it was the 
2d of August — submitted to the Cabinet " the rough 

* Warden's Life of Chase, p. 440. 



522 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

draft " of a proclamation to emancipate, after a cer- 
tain day, all slaves in States which should then be 
in rebellion, but that Mr. Seward argued against the 
promulgation of such a paper at that time, " because 
it would be received and considered as a despair- 
ing cry — a shriek from and for the administration 
rather than for freedom." * He further records 
that the President, impressed with this view, closed 
his portfolio, and did not recur to the subject until 
after the battle of Antietam, which was fought on 
the 17th of September. 

Writing in his diary under date of August 3d, but 
referring, doubtless, to the discussions held in the 
Cabinet on the previous day,f Mr. Chase records 
that, " for the tenth or twentieth time," he urged the 
adoption of a vigorous policy against slavery in the 
seceded States by " assuring the blacks of freedom 
on condition of loyalty, and by organizing the best 
of them in companies and regiments." He further 
records that Mr. Seward " expressed himself in favor 
of any measures which could be carried into effect 
without proclamation, and the President said that he 
was pretty well cured of objection to any measure, 
except want of adaptedness to put down the rebel- 
lion, but did not seem satisfied that the time had 

* Galaxy, December, 1872, p. 845. 

f The meeting was held on a Saturday, according to Mr. Welles, and the 
3d of August, 1862, was a Sunday. 



BY JAMES C. WELLING. 523 

come for the adoption of such a plan as I had pro- 
posed." '■" 

On the 22d of August, just one month after Mr. 
Lincoln had first opened the subject of emancipation 
to his Cabinet, he proceeded to take the whole coun- 
try into his confidence on the relations of slavery to 
the war. On that day he wrote " the Greeley Let- 
ter " — a letter written in reply to an earnest and im- 
portunate appeal in which, assuming to utter the 
" Prayer of Twenty Millions," Mr. Greeley had 
called on the President, with much truculence of 
speech, to issue a proclamation of freedom to all 
slaves in the Confederate States. As this letter was 
the first as well as the most pithy and syllogistic 
public discussion which the President ever gave to 
the subject in hand, it seems proper not only to in- 
sert it here in its entirety, but, as a matter of literary 
curiosity, to reproduce it in its original form. The 
following is a fac-simile of the letter : 

^^ ^ria.^ juuJ^j /Ul^.j:0 fU^ru^ ^4^ 

£yyrtrr (l-^t^ ^ ^>^ (^^^^, fK/n^ £t*~«.*^ -^v^^ cs^^Zx^^^^^Zuy 

* Warden's Life of Chase, p. 446. 



524 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

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<'_ td/'t^j^^'^ J^^ «^^ /y^ ^yzr»-€oC/Jt-«~ 



X.yl.Z3> 






BY JAMES C. WELLING. 525 

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This letter appeared for the first time in the iVi?- 
/zb?^^/ Intelligencer of August 23, 1862.* 

* The letter came into my hands from the fact that I was one of the editors 



526 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

In his interview with the representatives of the 
Border States, held on the loth of March, 1862, Mr. 
Lincoln had said that, as long as he remained Presi- 
dent, the people of Maryland (and therefore of the 
other Border States) had nothing to fear for their 
peculiar domestic institution "either by direct action 
of the government or by indirect action, as through 
the emancipation of slaves in the District of Colum- 
bia or the confiscation of Southern property" in 
slaves. In that same interview, while making a con- 
fidential avowal of these friendly sentiments, he had 
protested against their public announcement at that 
juncture, on the ground that "it would force him 
into a quarrel with * the Greeley faction ' before the 
proper time." He twice intimated that such a quar- 
rel was impending, but added that " he did not wish 
to encounter it before the proper time, nor at all if it 
could be avoided." * 

It was no more than natural, therefore, that these 
Representatives, on the appearance of " the Greeley 
Letter," should have read between its lines a sup- 



of the Intelligencer, to which Mr. Lincoln sent it for publication. The omitted 
passage—" Broken eggs can never be mended, and the longer the breaking 
proceeds the more will be broken " — was erased, with some reluctance, by the 
President, on the representation, made to him by the editors, that it seemed 
somewhat exceptionable, on rhetorical grounds, in a paper of such digriity. 
But it can do no harm, at this late day, to reveal the homely similitude by 
which Mr. Lincoln had originally purposed to reinforce his political warnings. 
* McPherson, Political History, p. 21 1. 



BY JAMES C. WELLING. 527 

posed indication of the President's purpose to break 
with "the Greeley faction" at an early day. They 
Relieved that the President, at the bottom of his 
heart, was in sympathy with them, and with their 
theory of the war. They were not entirely dis- 
abused of this impression even after his interview 
with them on the 12th of July, when he made a last 
ineffectual appeal to them in behalf of " emancipa- 
tion with compensation to loyal owners," and when he 
reinforced his appeal by urging that the acceptance 
of such a policy would help to relieve him from '* the 
pressure " for military emancipation at the South. 

The Representatives from the Border States were 
strengthened in their delusion by a corresponding 
delusion of the Radical Republicans,* who weakly 
supposed the President at this juncture to be a nose 
of wax in the hands of what they called " the pro- 
slavery faction." As late as the loth of September, 
ten days before the preliminary Proclamation of 
Emancipation was issued, we find Mr. Chase lament- 
ing in his diary that the President " has yielded so 
much to Border State and negrophobic counsels that 
he now finds it difficult to arrest his own descent to 
the most fatal concessions." f And this impatient 



* The word "Radical" throughout this paper is used historically, and not 
in any invidious sense. It is the term by which Mr. Lincoln called the " Stal- 
warts " of that day, and by which they called themselves. 

f Warden's Life of Chase, p. 471. 



528 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

insistence of his Radical friends was repaid by the 
President with gibes and sneers, as when, for in- 
stance, on this same loth of September, he taunted 
Mr. Chase with " the ill-timed jest" that some one 
had proposed, in view of the Confederate invasion 
of Pennsylvania, which was then believed to be im- 
pending, that he (the President) should issue a proc- 
lamation "freeing all apprentices in that State" — on 
the ground of military necessity ! 

It was with a like festive humor that, on the 13th 
of September, he parried the arguments of the Chi- 
cago clergymen who had come to Washington in 
order to press for a proclamation of freedom. To 
their representation that the recent military disasters 
'' were tokens of divine displeasure, calling for new 
and advanced action on the part of the President," 
he shrewdly replied that, if it was probable that God 
would reveal his will to others on a point so intimate- 
ly connected with the President's duty, it might be 
supposed that he would reveal it directly to the Pres- 
ident himself. To the argument that a proclamation 
of freedom would summon additional laborers to help 
the army, he replied by asking what reason there was 
to suppose that such a proclamation would have more 
effect than the late law enacted by Congress to this 
end ; and, if they should come in multitudes, how, he 
asked, could they all be fed ? To the suggestion that 
the able-bodied among them might be armed to fight 



BY JAMES C. WELLING. 529 

for the Union, he ironically replied, " If we were to 
arm them, I fear that in a few weeks the arms would 
be in the hands of the rebels." To the plea that 
emancipation would give a holy motive and a sacred 
object to the war, he replied by saying that " we 
already had an important principle to rally and unite 
the people, in the fact that constitutional government 
was at stake — a fundamental idea going down about 
as deep as anything." 

It is true that at the close of his interview the Pres- 
ident assured the Chicago committee that he had 
not "decided against a proclamation of liberty to 
slaves," and that " the subject was on his mind by 
day and night more than any other;" but this state- 
ment only served to bring into bold relief the little 
faith he then seemed to have in a measure for which, 
considered as a means to the ends proposed by its 
patrons, he could, with all his meditations, find no 
good and sufficient reasons. It is true that, on the 
preceding 2 2d of July, Mr. Lincoln had said that he 
was pretty well cured of objection to any measure 
against slavery except "want of adaptedness to put 
down the rebellion;" and now, too, he publicly an- 
nounced that he "did not want to issue a document 
which the whole world would see must necessarily be 
inoperative, like the Pope's bull against the comet." 
It is true that he had previously sketched "the rough 

draft " of an emancipation proclamation, but he had 

34 



530 



REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



put it back In his portfolio on the suggestion of Mr. 
Seward that practical measures against slavery could 
be carried into effect "without proclamation." It is 
true that only a few days previously ("when the rebel 
army was at Frederick " "") he had registered a vow 
in heaven that he would issue a proclamation of 
emancipation so soon as the Confederates should be 
driven out of Maryland ; but this was the conduct 
either of a man who, in a perplexing state of incer- 
titude, resolves his doubts by " throwing a lot in the 
lap" and leaving "the whole disposing thereof to be 
of the Lord," or, as I prefer to believe, it was that 
prudent and reverent waiting on Providence by which 
the President sought to guard against the danger of 
identifying the proclamation in the popular mind with 
a panic cry of despair, in which latter case the hesi- 
tation of Mr. Lincoln only serves to set in a stronger 
light the significant fact that other than considera- 
tions of military necessity were held to dominate the 
situation, for, if they alone had been prevalent, the 
proclamation could never have come more appropri- 
ately than when the military need was greatest. 

The proximate and procuring cause of the proc- 
lamation, as I conceive, is not far to seek. It was 
issued primarily and chiefly as a political necessity, 
and took on the character of a military necessity only 
because the President had been brought to believe 

* September 6th. 



BY JAMES C. WELLING. 531 

that if he did not keep the Radical portion of his 
party at his back he could not long be sure of keep- 
ing an army at the front. He had begun the conduct 
of the war on the theory that it was waged for the 
restoration of the Union under the Constitution as it 
was at the outbreak of the secession movement. He 
sedulously labored to keep the war in this line of di- 
rection. He publicly deprecated its degeneration into 
a remorseless revolutionary struggle. He cultivated 
every available alliance with the Union men of the 
Border States. He sympathized with them in their 
loyalty, and in the political theory on which it was 
placed. But the most active and energetic wing of 
the Republican Party had become, as the war waxed 
hotter, more and more hostile to this " Border State 
theory of the war," until, in the end, its fiery and im- 
petuous leaders did not hesitate to threaten him with 
repudiation as a political chief, and even began in 
some cases to hint the expediency of withholding 
supplies for the prosecution of the war, unless the 
President should remove "pro-slavery generals" 
from the command of our armies, and adopt an 
avowedly antislavery policy in the future conduct of 
the war. Thus placed between two stools, and liable 
between them to fall to the (jround, he determined 
at last to plant himself firmly on the stool which 
promised the surest and safest support. 

I am able to state with confidence that Mr. Lin- 



532 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

coin gave this explanation of his changed policy a 
few days after the preliminary proclamation of Sep- 
tember 22d had been issued. The Hon. Edward 
Stanly, the Military Governor of North Carolina, 
immediately on receiving a copy of that paper, has- 
tened to Washington for the purpose of seeking an 
authentic and candid explanation of the grounds on 
which Mr. Lincoln had based such a sudden and 
grave departure from the previous theory of the war. 
Mr. Stanly had accepted the post of Military Gover- 
nor of North Carolina at a great personal sacrifice, 
and with a distinct understanding that the war was 
to be prosecuted on the same constitutional theory 
which had presided over its inception by the Federal 
Government, and hence the proclamation not only 
took him by surprise, but seemed to him an act of 
perfidy. In this view he hastily abandoned his post, 
and came to throw up his commission and return to 
California, where he had previously resided. Before 
doing so he sought an audience with the President — 
in fact, held several interviews with him — on the sub- 
ject, and knowing that, as a public journalist, I was 
deeply interested in the matter, he came to report to 
me the substance of the President's communications. 
That substance was recorded in my diary as follows : 

''September 2yfh. — Had a call at the Intelligencer 
office from the Honorable Edward Stanly, Military 



BY JAMES C. WELLING. 533 

Governor of North Carolina. In a long and inter- 
esting conversation Mr. Stanly related to me the 
substance of several interviews which he had had 
with the President respecting the Proclamation of 
Freedom. Mr. Stanly said that the President had 
stated to him that the proclamation had become a 
civil necessity to prevent the Radicals from openly 
embarrassing the government in the conduct of the 
war. The President expressed the belief that, with- 
out the proclamation for which they had been clam- 
oring, the Radicals would take the extreme step in 
Congress of withholding supplies for carrying on the 
war — leaving the whole land in anarchy. Mr. Lin- 
coln said that he had prayed to the Almighty to 
save him from this necessity, adopting the very 
language of our Saviour, * If it be possible, let this 
cup pass from me,' but the prayer had not been 
answered." 

As this frank admission, in the length and breadth 
here given to it, will doubtless wear an air of novelty 
to many readers, and may excite suspicions in some 
minds with regard to the accuracy of my chronicle, 
the faithfulness of Mr. Stanly's report, or the sincer- 
ity of Mr. Lincoln in making his statements, it seems 
proper to vindicate the authenticity of the record by 
an appeal to other facts which abundantly corrobo- 
rate its truth. 



534 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

In his interview with the Border State Represent- 
atives on the 1 2th of July, 1862, the President had 
implored them to relieve him from the Radical 
"pressure" by espousing-, with him, the policy of 
emancipation with compensation. This " pressure," 
he said, was even then " threatening a division among 
those who, united, are none too strong." On the 
next day, after the failure of this interview to make 
any impression on the Border State Representatives, 
the President, for the first time, opened the subject 
of military emancipation in a private conversation 
with two members of his Cabinet — Mr. Seward and 
Mr. Welles. The President then said, as Mr. Welles 
reports, that emancipation "was forced upon him as 
a necessity," " was thrust at him from various quar- 
ters," but " had been driven home to him by the con- 
ference of the preceding day.'' * On the 28th of the 
same month he wrote to Mr. Cuthbert Bullitt, of 
New Orleans, that it was " a military necessity to 
have men and money, and we cannot get either in 
sufficient numbers or amount if zve keep from or drive 
from our lilies slaves coming to tJiemr\ Even at 
this date, when the enlistment of colored troops was 
not meditated, it will be seen that Mr. Lincoln con- 
fessed himself obliged to make concessions to the 
antislavery sentiment of his party in order to pro- 

* Galaxy, December, 1872, p. 843. 

f Raymond, Life and State Papers of Abraham Lincoln, p. 484. 



BY JAMES a WELLING. 535 

cure supplies of men and money, and thus early it 
was that, as a wary political pilot, he kept his 
weather eye fixed on the thickening clouds that rose 
hio-her and higher in the Northern sky — clouds full 
of muttered wrath against him so long as he seemed 
to hold in leash the thunderbolt they were ready to 
discharge on slavery. For he prefaced this state- 
ment by saying that what he did and what he omitted 
about slaves "was done and omitted on the same 
military necessity " — the necessity of having men and 
money to carry on the war. And the President's 
apprehensions were not entirely groundless on this 
score. As early as the month of May, 1862, Gov- 
ernor Andrew, of Massachusetts, had not hesitated 
to say " in writing " that the people of that State had 
come to " feel it a heavy draft on their patriotism " 
that they should be asked "to help fight rebels" 
without being allowed "to fire on the enemy's maga- 
zine." And, in the very act of submitting the pre- 
liminary proclamation of September 22d to the con- 
sideration of his Cabinet, the President avowed that 
it was issued under the menacing frown of this 
"pressure ;" for when Mr. Montgomery Blair ar- 
gued against the timeliness of the measure, on the 
ground that it might " put the patriotic element of 
the Border States in jeopardy," and even " carry 
those States over to the secessionists," Mr. Lincoln 
replied that " the difficulty was as great 7iot to act as 



536 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

to act " * — that is, by not acting in the way proposed 
he feared a disaffection among his party friends at 
the North which would be as dangerous to the Union 
as the disaffection Hkely to be produced by the 
proclamation among the Unionists of the Border 
States. The President remembered that the Massa- 
chusetts Republican Convention, held less than two 
weeks before, had omitted to pass a vote of confi- 
dence in his administration, but Jiad voted that 
" slavery should be exterminated." Even the Radi- 
cal members of his own Cabinet had come to think 
of him and to speak of him as a political recreant. 
On the 1 2th of September, ten days before the pre- 
liminary edict was issued, Mr. Chase wrote of him as 
follows : " He has already separated himself from the 
great body of the party which elected him, distrusts 
most those who represent its spirit, and waits — for 
what ?"f 

The proclamation when it came put an end, of 
course, to all this " pressure." Indeed, Mr. Chase 
admitted, when the President read the paper to his 
Cabinet, that it went "a step further than he had 
ever proposed." He had proposed that each com- 
mander of a department at the South should be 
instructed to proclaim emancipation within his dis- 
trict, assurinor the blacks of freedom on condition 

* Galaxy, December, 1872, p. 847. 
f Warden's Life of Chase, p. 471. 



BY JAMES C. WELLING. 537 

of loyalty, and organizing the best of them in com- 
panies and regiments.""' But Mr. Lincohi promised 
and threatened that, on the ist of January, 1863, 
"all persons held as slaves within any State, or 
designated part of a State, the people whereof 
should then be in rebelHon against the United 
States, should be then, theficeforward, and forever 
free'' — a declaration which promised the largesse 
of freedom alike to the "loyal blacks" who escaped 
within our lines, and to the slaves who voluntarily 
stood by their masters because they were unwill- 
ing to strike a blow for their own liberty. 

If the proclamation disarmed for a time the bitter 
opposition of the Radicals, its other political and 
practical effects were such as abundantly justified 
the long hesitation of the President in issuing it. 
It precipitated a crisis which threatened to divide 
the friends of the Union at the North by a new line 
of cleavage. If Governor Andrew and his political 
associates had previously found it a "heavy draft" 
on their patriotism to sustain the President in his 
constitutional theory of the war, it now became a 
heavy draft on the patriotism of conservative Re- 
publicans and of war Democrats to sustain him in 
his new departure. New elective affinities suddenly 
struck through the seething mass of public opinion, 
and led to new political formations. A spirit of 

* Warden's Life of Chase, p. 440, 446. 



538 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

political giddiness and revolt was shed upon the 
people in the loyal States. In the ensuing autum- 
nal election the Republican Party was defeated in 
great States like New York, Ohio, Indiana, and 
Illinois. When Congress met in December the 
political signs of the times were full of portents. 
There was "uneasiness in the popular mind." The 
attitude of Europe toward us was " cold and men- 
acing" where it did not express itself "in accents 
of pity" for a people "too blind to surrender a 
hopeless cause." These are not my words, but the 
words of Mr. Lincoln himself when, one year after- 
ward, he was called to review the political, civil, 
and military situation created by the Emancipation 
Proclamation. The utterance of the proclamation, 
he said. " was followed by dark and doubtful 
days." * 

The Emancipation Proclamation united the South, 
where, however, there was but little room for further 
consolidation. Leading citizens in that section who 
had previously stood aloof from the war, so long as 
it was conducted at the South in the name of seces- 
sion against the Constitutional Government to 
Washington, now hastened to give in their adhesion 
to the Richmond authorities. In his message of 
December, 1861, Mr. Lincoln had said that "in con- 
sidering the policy to be adopted for suppressing 

* Raymond, Life and State Papers of Abraham Lincoln, p. 454. 



BY JAMES C. WELLING. 539 

the insurrection," he had been " anxious and careful 
that the inevitable conflict for this purpose should 
not degenerate into a violent and remorseless revo- 
lutionary struggle. * * '" All indispensable means," 
he added, "must be employed," but "we should not 
be in haste to determine that radical and extreme 
measures, which may reach the loyal as well as dis- 
loyal, are indispensable." The Emancipation Proc- 
lamation was accepted by these halting Unionists at 
the South as an indication that the time for " radical 
and extreme measures " had come in the judgment 
of the President, and they acted accordingly. " For 
a time," says Mr. Welles, the proclamation " failed 
to strengthen the administration in any section." "' 

Its effect on the slaves at the South was such as 
Mr. Lincoln had predicted in his interview with the 
Chicago deputation. Sanguine advocates of eman- 
cipation by edict of the President had risked the 
confident prophecy that it would be followed by a 
simultaneous exodus of negroes from the South, and 
that such an exodus would end the war by a coup de 
theatre. As one of them wrote : " The plow would 
stand still in the furrow, the ripened grain would re- 
main unharvested, the cows would not be milked, 
the dinners would not be cooked, but one universal 
hallelujah of glory to God, echoed from every valley 
and hill-top of rebeldom, would sound the speedy 

* Galaxy, December, 1872, p. 848. 



540 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

doom of treason."* This bubble was pricked by the 
pen that wrote the proclamation. 

In all tlicsc respects the manifesto was compara- 
tively a failure. But it accomplished at once the 
great end to which it was most immediately directed 
by the President — it consolidated the Republican 
Party, and made it more intensely than ever " the 
war-party of the country." It is true that veteran 
Republicans, like Thurlow Weed, shrank in dismay 
from the measure ; but in the great body of the 
party it kindled a new flame of martial enthusiasm, 
albeit the "roads" in New England did not "swarm" 
with volunteer soldiers, as Governor Andrew had 
promised and predicted, during the "pressure" pe- 
riod, would be the case, provided the President 
would allow them to fight "with God and human 
nature on their side." The anti-slavery passions of 
the North, which had hitherto been kicking in the 
traces, were now effectively yoked to the war-chariot 
of the President. The proclamation lessened for 
a time the number of his supporters, but it gave 
to them almost the compactness of a Macedonian 
phalanx. It put an end to political vacillation and 
atcrmoieme^tt. Not that the measure in either mat- 
ter or form was entirely satisfactory to the zealots of 
emancipation, and not that the President, as Lord 
Lyons wrote to his government, " had thrown him- 

* National Intelligencer, July 31, 1862, 



BY JAMES C. WELLING. 54 1 

self in the arms of the Radicals." While still refus- 
ing to walk altogether in the ways of these extrem- 
ists, he established such a hold on the rank and file 
of the Republican army that they followed him with- 
out faltering through the shadow of the dim eclipse 
which obscured their fortunes in the autumn of 1862. 
A year later, after the victory at Gettysburg and 
after the fall of Vicksburg, when the shock of arms 
on a hundred battle-fields had come to supply the 
country with a new set of emotions, Mr. Lincoln was 
able to say, "We have the new reckoning." 

Doubtless there are those who, on the view here 
presented, will tax Mr. Lincoln with undue subserv- 
iency to party. But it is only just to remember that 
he tried to avoid its necessity, as with strong crying 
and tears ; that he was called in his political geome- 
try to deal with problems, not theorems ; and that 
he was a tentative statesman, who groped his way a 
tdtons, not a doctrmairc. If there be heroes, as Car- 
lyle conceives them, bathed in the eternal splendors, 
and projected out of the eternities into the times and 
their arenas, Lincoln did not profess to be of their 
number. 

I pass to consider the force and effect of the pro- 
clamation viewed in the light of constitutional and 
of public law. And here, again, it is necessary to 
guard against a confusion of ideas. The question at 
issue does not concern the right of a belligerent to 



542 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOIN 

liberate slaves, flagrante dcllo, by military order ac- 
companied with manucaption, or the right to enlist 
such liberated slaves in his army, so long as the war 
lasts. The employment of colored troops, as has been 
shown, did not depend on the Emancipation Procla- 
mation, for the President was opposed to the arming 
of negroes when he first embarked on his emancipa- 
tion policy. The questions presented by the procla- 
mation of January i, 1863, in the shape actually 
given to it by Mr. Lincoln, are these : 

Firstly — Had the President of the United States, 
in the exercise of his war powers, a right, under 
the Constitution and by public law, to decree, on 
grounds of military necessity, the emancipation and 
perpetual enfranchisement of slaves in the insurgent 
States and parts of States ? 

Secondly — Did such proclamation work, by its own 
vigor, the immediate, the unconditional and the per- 
petual emancipation of all slaves in the districts af- 
fected by it ? 

Thirdly— Did such proclamation, working /r^/r/^ 
vigorc, not only effect the emancipation of all exist- 
ing slaves in the insurgent territory, but, with regard 
to slaves so liberated, did it extinguish the status of 
slavery created by municipal law, insomuch that 
they would have remained forever free, in fact and 
law, provided the Constitution and the legal rights 
and relations of the States under it had remained, 



BY JAMES C. WELLING. 543 

on' the return of peace, what they were before the 
war ? 

Unless each and all of these questions can be an- 
swered in the affirmative, the Emancipation Proclama- 
tion was not authorized by the Constitution or by in- 
ternational law, and so far as they must be answered 
in the neeative it was brtUuni fulmen. It remains, 
then, to make inquiry under each of these heads : 

I. As everybody admits that the President, in time 
of peace and in the normal exercise of his consti- 
tutional prerogatives, had no power to emancipate 
slaves, it follows that the right accrued to him, if at 
all, from the war powers lodged in his hands by pub- 
lic law when, as commander-in-chief of the army and 
navy, he was engaged in a life-and-death struggle 
with insurgents, whose number, power, and legal de- 
scription gave them the character of public enemies. 
It is, therefore, to public law, as enfolded in time of 
war and for war purposes in the bosom of the Con- 
stitution, that we are primarily to look for the author- 
ity under which the President assumed to act. 

Of international law no less can be said than has 
been said by Webster : " If, for the decision of any 
question, the proper rule is to be found in the law of 
nations, that law adheres to the subject. It follows 
the subject through, no matter into what place, high 
or low. You cannot escape the law of nations in a 
case where it is applicable. The air of every judi- 



544 



REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



cature is full of it. It pervades the courts of law of 
the highest character, and the court oi pie poud^'e, ay, 
even the constable's court.'"'' 

This international law, with all its belligerent 
rights, was everywhere present as a potent force in 
the civil war between the United States and the 
Confederate States, so soon as that war had assumed 
such character and magnitude as to give the United 
States the same rights and powers which they might 
exercise in the case of a national or foreign war, and 
everybody admits that it assumed that character after 
the act of Congress of July 13, 1861. But interna- 
tional law, in time of war, is present with its belliger- 
ent obligations as well as with its belligerent rights, 
and what those obligations are is matter of definite 
knowledge so far as they are recognized and observed 
in the conduct and jurisprudence of civilized nations. 

The law of postliminy, according to which persons 
or things taken by the enemy are restored to their 
former state when they come again under the power 
of the nation to which they formerly belonged, was 
anciently held to restore the rights of the owner in 
the case of a slave temporarily affranchised by mili- 
tary capture. And, if it be admitted that, as regards 
slaves, this fiction of the Roman law has fallen into 
desuetude under the present practice of nations, it is 
none the less true that the Government of the United 

* Webster's IVoiks, vol. vi., p. 122. 



BY JAMES C. WELLING. 545 

States has earnestly contended, in its intercourse with 
other nations, for the substantial principle on which 
the rule is based. We insisted on restoration or 
restitution in the case of all slaves emancipated by 
British commanders in the war of 1812-15, and the 
justice of our claim under the law of nations was con- 
ceded by Great Britain when she signed the Treaty 
of Ghent, and when, on the arbitration of Russia, she 
paid a round sum, by way of Indemnity, to be distrib- 
uted among the owners of slaves who had been de- 
spoiled of their slave property.'^' In the face of a 
precedent so set and so adjudicated by these great 
powers acting under the law of nations (and one of 
them subsequently known as the leading anti-slavery 
power of the civilized world), it would seem that, as 
a question of law, the first interrogatory must be an- 
swered in the negative. Slaves temporarily captured 
to weaken the enemy and to conquer a peace are 
not lawful prize of war by military proceedings alone 
— proclamation, capture and deportation. The more 
fully it be conceded that international law, in time 
and fact of war, knows the slave only as a person, 
the more fully must it be conceded that this law, by 
purely military measures, can take no cognizance of 
him as a chattel, either to preserve or to destroy the 
master's property right under municipal law. It 
leaves questions about the chattel to be settled in 

' * Lawrence's Wheaton, pp. 612, 659. 



546 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

another form, and by another judicature than the 
wager of battle. 

Nor does it help the matter to say that in a terri- 
torial civil war the Federal Government is clothed 
with the rights of a constitutional sovereign in ad- 
dition to those of a belligerent ; for, though this 
statement is entirely true, it is not true that both of 
these jurisdictions apply at the same time, or that it 
is lawful to import the methods and processes of the 
one into the domain of the other. A government, 
for instance, may proceed against armed rebels by the 
law of war — killing them in battle if it find them in 
battle array ; by public law — confiscating their prop- 
erty ; by sovereign constitutional law — condemning 
them to death, for treason, after due trial and con- 
viction. But each of these proceedings moves in a 
sphere of its own, and the methods of the one sphere 
cannot be injected into the sphere of the other. It 
would, for example, be a shocking violation of both 
constitutional and public law to shoot down insurgent 
prisoners of war, in cold blood, because they were 
" red-handed traitors," and because they might have 
been lawfully killed in battle. The military capture 
of a slave and the confiscation of the owner's property 
rights in him fall under separate jurisdictions, and 
they cannot both be condensed into the hands of a 
military commander any more than into the hands of 
a judge. 



B V JAMES C. WELLING. 547 

2. No principle of public law is clearer than that 
which rules the war rights of a belligerent to be cor- 
relative and commensurate only with his war powers. 
" To extend the rights of military occupation or the 
limits of conquest by mere intention, implication, or 
proclamation, would be," says Halleck, " establishing 
a paper conquest infinitely more objectionable in its 
character and effects than a papei^ blockade.''^ It is 
only so far as and so fast as the conquering belliger- 
ent reclaims " enemy territory " and gets possession 
of " enemy property " that his belligerent rights at- 
tach to either. And hence, when Mr. Lincoln, on 
the ist of January, 1863, assumed authority, in the 
name of " military necessity," but without the indis- 
pensable occupatio bellica, to emancipate slaves in the 
territory held by the enemy, he contravened a funda- 
mental principle of the public law — a principle equally 
applicable to the relations of a territorial civil war and 
of a foreign war. It is important to observe that 
where this principle was guarded by the rights and 
interests of foreign nations, as in the case of the 
Southern ports of entry while they were under the 
power of the Confederate authority, it was sacredly 
respected J)y our government. And in the light of 
this doctrine it follows that the second of the ques- 
tions formulated above must also be answered in the 

* Halleck, Ittternational Law, chapter xxxii. § 2. Cf. 2 Sprague's Reports, 
p. 149. 



548 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

negative ; for as to large parts of the South Mr. 
Lincohi had no dc facto power when he assumed to 
Hberate slaves both dc facto and de jure within all 
the "enemy territory" at that date. 

3. Since the decision of Lord Stowell in the case 
of the slave Grace,* it has been an accepted doctrine 
of jurisprudence that the slave character of a liber- 
ated slave — liberated by residing on free soil — is re- 
dintegrated by the voluntary return of such slave to 
the country of the master. Unless, therefore, the 
Proclamation of Freedom is held to have extinguished 
the status of slavery in the States and parts of States 
affected by it, it would have conferred a very equiv- 
ocal boon on its beneficiaries. For, unless the mu- 
nicipal law of slavery were wiped out by the Procla- 
mation, and by conquest under it, what prevented a 
re-enslavement of such emancipated blacks as should 
return to their homes after the war ? And this fact 
was made apparent to Mr. Lincoln and to the whole 
country as soon as an occasion arose for bringing the 
matter to a practical test. 

On the 1 8th of July, 1864, when the famous " peace 
negotiations " were pending at Niagara Falls between 
Mr. Greeley and certain assumed representatives of 
the Confederate States, Mr. Lincoln wrote that he 
would receive and consider " any proposition which 
embraced the restoration of peace, the integrity of 

* 2 Haggard's Reports, p. 94. 



B V JAMES C. WELLING. 549 

the whole country, and the abandonment of slavery, 
and which came by and with an authority tJiat can 
control the armies now at zuar against the United 
States.'' It was seen that the emancipation of indi- 
vidual slaves, even of all individual slaves in the in- 
surgent States, was worth nothing without an aban- 
donment of slavery itself — of the municipal status in 
which the slave character was radicated, and in which 
it might be planted anew by a voluntary return to 
the slave soil. It was seen, too, that the Proclamation 
of Freedom, considered as a military edict addressed 
to " rebels in arms," had created a misjoinder of par- 
ties as well as a misjoinder of issues, for the author- 
ity which controlled the Confederate armies was not 
competent to "abandon slavery" in the insurgent 
States, though it zvas competent to restore " peace 
and union" by simply desisting from further hostili- 
ties. A misjoinder of issues was also created, for 
each State, under the Constitution as it stood, had a 
right, in the matter of slavery, to order and control 
its own domestic institutions according to its own 
judgment exclusively ; and the nation, by the con- 
quest of its own territory, "could acquire no new 
sovereignty, but merely maintain its previous rights."^' 
The proclamation proposed to leave the institution 
of slavery undisturbed in certain States and parts of 
States, while destroying it in certain other States and 

* 2 Sprague's Reports, p. 148. 



550 



REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



parts of States. Hence, on the supposition that the 
paper was to have full force and effect after the war, 
while our civil policy remained the same, a new dis- 
tribution of powers, as between certain States and 
parts of States on the one hand and the Federal 
Government on the other, would have been created 
by edict of the Executive.* Without any express 
chanee in the Constitution of the United States, and 
without any express change in the constitutions of 
the insurgent States, the status of persons on one 
side of a State line, or even on one side of a county 
line, would have depended on municipal law ; on the 
other side of such State or county line it would have 
depended on a military decree of the President. In 
this strange mixture of what Tacitus calls ''res dis- 
sociabiles — principatum ac libertatem'' it would have 
been hard to tell where the former ended and the 
latter began ; and to suppose that the civil courts, in 
the ordinary course of judicial decision, could have 
recognized such anomalies, while the rights of the 
States under the Constitution were still defined by 
that instrument, is to suppose that judges decree 
justice without law, without rule, and without reason. 
It is safe, therefore, to say that the third question 
above indicated must equally be answered in the 



nefrative. 



And even if it be held that the President's want 



* 2 Hurd, Law of Freedom and Bondage, p. 787. 



BY JAMES C. WELLING. 551 

of power to issue the proclamation without the 
accompanying occupatio bcllica, and that the conse- 
quent want of efficacy in the paper to work emanci- 
pation /r*^//^/*? vigorc, were cured by actual conquest 
under it on the part of the government, and by 
actual submission to it on the part of the seceded 
States, insomuch that it would have operated the 
extinction of the slave status in those States, it still 
remains none the less clear that, without a change 
in the Constitution of the United States, prohibiting 
slavery in the South, the proclamation must have 
failed, with the rights of plenary conquest limited 
by the Constitution, to insure the perpetual free- 
dom of the slaves liberated under it ; for what, 
under the rights still reserved to the States, would 
have prevented the future re-establishment of slav- 
ery at the South after the return of peace ? 

Nobody was more quick to perceive or more frank 
to admit the legal weakness and insufficiency of the 
Emancipation Proclamation than Mr. Lincoln. De- 
termined though he was never to retract the paper, 
or by his own act to return to slavery any person 
who was declared free by its terms, he saw that, in 
itself considered, it was a frail muniment of title to 
any slave who should claim to be free by virtue of 
its vigor alone. And therefore it was that, with a 
candor which did him honor, he made no pretense 
of concealing its manifold infirmities either from his 



552 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

own eyes or from the eyes of the people, so soon as 
Congress proposed, in a way of undoubted consti- 
tutionahty and of undoubted efficacy, to put an end 
to slavery everywhere in the Union by an amend- 
ment to the Constitution. Remarking on that 
amendment at the time of its proposal, he said : 
" A question might be raised whether the procla- 
mation was legally valid. It might be added that it 
aided only those who came into our lines, and that 
it was inoperative as to those who did not give 
themselves up ; or that it would have no effect upon 
the children of the slaves born hereafter; in fact, it 
could be urged that it did not meet the evil. But 
this amendment is a king's cure for all evils. It 
winds the whole thing up." "* 

In the light of these facts, of these principles, and 
of Mr. Lincoln's own admissions, it would seem that 
the Emancipation Proclamation was extra-constitu- 
tional — so truly outside of the Constitution that it 
required an amendment to the Constitution to bring 
the President's engagements and promises inside of 
the Constitution. And surely it will not be pre- 
tended that the President, even on the plea of mili- 
tary necessity, has a right to originate amendments 
to the Constitution, or to wage war on States until 
they agree to adopt amendments of his imposing. 
This would be to " theorize with bayonets, and to 

* Raymond, Life and State Papers of Abraham Lincoln, p. 646. 



BY JAMES C. WELLING. 553 

dogmatize in blood." This would be to make it 
competent for the President in time of war to alter 
the fundamental law of the land by pronunciamiento 
— a mode of proceeding which falls not only outside 
of the Constitution, but outside of the United States 
— into Mexico. 

The Proclamation fell also outside of the jural 
relations of slavery under international law. Con- 
ceding that slaves, in time of war, are known under 
international law only as persons, we still have to 
hold that, as residents of "enemy territory," the 
slaves here in question were, by the terms of that 
code, as much "enemies" of the United States as 
their masters.* But the proclamation treated them 
as friends and allies. In the eye of municipal law, 
they were property, and the proclamation acknowl- 
edged them as such in the act of declaring them 
free ; but, as such, they were confiscable only by 
due process of law, after manucaption ; and whether 
they were confiscated under public law, or under 
sovereign constitutional law, would simply depend 
on the nature and terms of the confiscation act 
adopted by Congress. If they were confiscated as 
" enemy property," in order to weaken the enemy, 
the act would fall under public law. If they were 
confiscated in order to punish the treason of their 

* " In war, all residents of enemy country are enemies." — Chief-Justice 
Waite (2 Otto, p. 194), in common with all the authorities. 



554 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM IINCOLN 

owners, whereof such owners had been duly con- 
victed, the act would fall under sovereign constitu- 
tional law. But the proclamation assumed to con- 
fiscate the property rights of the slave-owners 
without any process of law at all ; and so it fell as 
much outside of public law as it fell outside of con- 
stitutional law and of municipal law. Nor has any 
amendment of public law as yet brought within the 
sanctions of international jurisprudence the preten- 
sion of a belligerent to alter and abolish, by procla- 
mation, the political and domestic institutions of a 
territory within which he has, at the time, no dc 
facto power. On the contrary, the pretension is 
traversed by the latest codifications of international 
law,* and by the latest publications of our own State 
Department.! And hence it is no matter of surprise 
that the first international lawyers of the country, 
like the Honorable William Beach Lawrence, and 
the first constitutional lawyers of the country, like 
the late Benjamin R. Curtis, have recorded their 
opinion as jurists against the legality of the Emanci- 
pation Proclamation. 

Lawyers, as Burke said at the beginning of the 
American Revolution, " have their strict rule to go 
by," and they must needs be true to their profes- 



* Bluntschli. Das Modern Volkcrrcchts, p. 306. (Lardy's French version 
obscures and misinterprets the text of the original on this point.) 
f Cadvvalader, Dii^csi, pp. 56, 57, 148, 151- 



BY JAMES C. WELLING. 555 

sion, but " the convulsions of a great empire are not 
fit matter of discussion under a commission of Oyer 
and Terminer.'' The Emancipation Proclamation 
did not draw its breath in the serene atmosphere of 
law. It was born in the smoke of battle, and its 
swaddling-bands were rolled in blood. It was in 
every sense of the word a coup d'etat, but one which 
the nation at first condoned, and then ratified by 
an amendment to the Constitution. As Mr. Welles 
says, "It was a despotic act in the cause of the 
Union" — an act, he adds, "almost revolutionary," 
and it was almost and not altogether revolutionary, 
simply because it fell short of the practical and legal 
effects at which it was nominally aimed. It was, in 
fact, martial law applied to a question of politics and 
of polity ; and of martial law, Sir Matthew Hale has 
said that " in truth and reality it is no law at all, but 
something indul2:ed." If we would look for its 
fountain and source, we must look to an institute 
which makes small account of all human conventions 
and charters — the lex talionis. The proclamation 
was the portentous retaliatory blow of a belligerent 
brought to bay in a death-grapple, and who drops 
his "elder-squirts charged with rose-water" (the 
phrase is Mr. Lincoln's), that he may hurl a mon- 
strous hand-grenade, charged with fulminating pow- 
der, full in the faces of the foe. The phenomenon 
is as old as the history of civil war ; and because he 



556 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

saw it was likely to re-appear so long as human na- 
ture remained the same, Thucydides had a presage 
that his history of the civil war between Athens and 
Sparta would be "a possession forever." "War," 
he wrote, " is a violent master, and assimilates the 
tempers of most men to the condition in which it 
places them." So Cromwell, in the hour of his 
political agony, exclaimed against " the pitiful, 
beastly notion " that a government was to be " clam- 
ored at and blattered at," because it went beyond 
law in time of storm and stress. 

And there is somethins: worse than a breach of the 
Constitution. It is worse to lose the country for 
which the Constitution was made ; but, if the defense 
of the proclamation can be rested on this ground, the 
fact does not require us to teach for doctrine of law 
that which is outside of law and against law. Mr. 
Jefferson held the Louisiana purchase to be extra- 
constitutional, but he did not try to bring it inside 
of the Constitution by construction. That he left to 
others. It seems a waste of loQfic to arcjue the va- 
lidity of Mr. Lincoln's edict. It moved above law, 
in the plane of statecraft. Not that its author, in 
so proceeding, moved on the moral plane of the in- 
surgents. He wrought to save, they to destroy, the 
Union. Not that he acted in malice, for, as he pro- 
tested, the case " was too vast for malicious deal- 
ing." And not that he clearly foresaw the end of 



BY JAMES C. WELLING. 557 

his Step from its beginning. The fateful times in 
which he acted the foremost part were larger than 
any of the men who lived in them, tall and com- 
manding as is the figure of the benign war Presi- 
dent, and the events then moving over the dial of 
history were grander than the statesmen or soldiers 
who touched the springs that made them move. It 
was a day of elemental stir, and the ground is still 
quaking beneath our feet, under the throes and 
convulsions of that great social and political change 
which was first definitely foreshadowed to the 
world by the Emancipation Proclamation of Abra- 
ham Lincoln. 

JAMES C. WELLING. 



XXXI. 

John Conness. 

MUCH has been written concerning the rela- 
tions of Abraham Lincohi and Salmon P. 
Chase, but the history of their separation in 1864 
and the acceptance of the resignation of Mr. Chase 
as Secretary of the Treasury, as given by the Presi- 
dent in a semi-official manner at that time, has not 
been presented to the public. 

The prosecution of the war had not up to that 
time been very successful, and the public credit was 
at its lowest ebb. Gold was at 2.80, and the peo- 
ple were rather discouraged. The first term of Mr. 
Lincoln was drawing to a close, and by common 
consent the President was a candidate for re-elec- 
tion. As stated by himself in his own way, " it was 
not well to swap horses in the middle of a stream." 

He was willing to be a candidate because he could 
best represent the issue with the Democratic Party, 
who were declaring the war a failure, and preparing 
to put a candidate in the field upon that declaration. 

Thus, as in the instance of his first nomination, 



560 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

without personal ambition, he was willing to be an 
instrument in the hands of the people to test the 
great issue before them. He had declared the pur- 
pose of the war by the administration to be the 
preservation of the Union. The Democratic Party 
claimed that the war for this purpose was a failure, 
and that the Union could only be preserved by 
peace and negotiation. This was the issue then 
clearly made up between the Democratic and Re- 
publican parties. 

Salmon P. Chase, Secretary of the Treasury, was 
also a candidate for the Presidency. That he was an 
able, upright and patriotic man need not be stated. 
He represented such of the Republican Party as be- 
lieved that the war had not been waged with the 
vigor and power necessary to conquer a peace ; and 
also by those who wished it carried on more with 
reference to the expurgation of slavery than Mr. 
Lincoln had done. 

The President held that it was his duty to pre- 
serve the Union, with or without slavery, while 
Mr. Chase believed, as an old antislavery man, that 
the destruction of slavery was the chief means in 
the prosecution of the war for the preservation of 
the Union. 

The candidature of both was calculated to lead to 
infelicitous relations between the two, and it did. 

This was doubtless by reason of intemperate sup- 



BY JOHN CONNESS. 56 1 

porters of each, who engaged in making statements 
derogatory to the other. 

The effect upon their candidates was different. Mr. 
Lincoln took it all easy and let tales brought to him 
pass for their value, which was not great. Mr. Chase, 
very differently constituted, felt otherwise. Over- 
sensitive and deeply passionate, he readily saw that 
the partisans of Mr. Lincoln were doing him injustice, 
and that the President was not wholly blameless. 

Since holding the portfolio of Secretary of the 
Treasury, he had presented his resignation several 
times theretofore, and which the consummate ad- 
dress and genuine kindness of Mr. Lincoln enabled 
him to parry and put aside. The last, however, 
was accompanied with peculiar irritation, and was 
accepted. 

It took the Senate by surprise. A message to 
that body, with the nomination of David Todd, of 
Ohio, for Secretary of the Treasury, in place of Sal- 
mon P. Chase resigned, was the first intimation the 
Senate had of the important event. 

The Senate went at once into executive session, 
and referred the nomination to its Finance Commit- 
tee and then adjourned. 

The committee met, and, after a full consultation, 
resolved to wait on the President in a body and as- 
certain why the resignation, whether it could not be 

reconsidered, and, if it could not, why the name of 

36 



562 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

David Todd was sent in as the successor of Mr. 
Chase. 

The committee went to the Executive Mansion, 
where the President met them, and the case and 
the object of their visit were stated by William Pitt 
Fessenden, their chairman. 

It is not putting it too strongly to say that the 
committee, or many members of it, felt that the fault 
was not alone that of Mr. Chase, and that in all 
probability the President was somewhat to blame ; 
that the change in the Treasury Department at that 
time, where Mr. Chase had done valuable work, 
would be a public misfortune, and that the nomina- 
tion of Todd showed a want of appreciation by the 
President of the condition of the public credit. 

David Todd had been one of the sturdiest of the 
" War Governors," and was known as a sterling 
patriot, but no one thought of him as a proper head 
of the Treasury Department then, or as a fitting 
successor of Chase. 

Mr. Lincoln at once relieved the committee con- 
cerning this last consideration, by stating that he 
had a dispatch from Governor Todd declining the 
office ; but before dismissing that branch of the sub- 
ject, said he had met many men since our troubles 
began, and comparing him with others — taking him 
all in all — he thought " Dave Todd was considerable 
of a man." 



BY JOHN CONNESS. 563 

He then went at length into a history of his rela- 
tions with " Governor Chase," as he styled him ; 
how he came to invite him, and in fact every other 
member of his Cabinet, to the places they filled, 
stating that he was governed in the selection of each 
by the need of representing the geographical and 
political sections of the country, and the prominence 
of each as representing opinion, giving the idea that 
it was not agreement in a Cabinet that he sought 
so much as representatives of differing sections and 
factions ; so Abolitionists, Conservatives, and the 
Blair family found representation in the Cabinet of 
Abraham Lincoln. 

The President was deeply serious throughout, and 
there was probably never a clearer exposition of mo- 
tive and character made than was then presented by 
him. His Cabinet seemed to have been selected 
with more impersonal consideration than was possi- 
ble to most men. He rose from his seat and took 
from some pigeon-holes near him all the correspond- 
ence which had passed between him and Mr. Chase, 
and read to the committee, commenting as he went 
on. He recounted the many times " Governor 
Chase " had tendered resignation, and the irrita- 
tion that had grown out of these repetitions, laying 
special stress upon the last of them. 

John J. Cisco had resigned the office of Assistant 
Treasurer at New York ; the place had been offered 



c64 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

to several gentlemen who declined it, and now the 
Secretary had determined to fill it with a man of 
his own choice. Friends of the President, and he, 
were opposed to Mr. Chase's selection. The Secre- 
tary claimed that he was responsible for the finances, 
and he should control this office. The President 
refused to appoint his man. but said he offered to 
appoint any other that Mr. Chase might name. 

" Now, gentlemen," continued the President, " I 
could not appoint him. He had only recently at a 
social gathering, in presence of ladies and gentle- 
men, while intoxicated, kicked his hat up against the 
ceiling, bringing discredit upon us all, and proving 
his unfitness." 

The President went specially into the difficulties 
which had come up between him and his Secretary, 
growing out of the improper conduct of their 
political friends, saying that he had no objection to 
the candidacy of Mr. Chase — he had a right to be a 
candidate — but there had grown such a state of feel- 
ing that it was unpleasant for them to meet each 
other ; and now Mr. Chase had resigned, and he 
had accepted the resignation. 

He added : " I will not longer continue the asso- 
ciation. I am ready and willing to resign the office 
of President, and let you have Mr. Hamlin for your 
President, but I will no longer endure the state I 
have been in." 



BY JOHN CON NESS. 565 

The above were nearly his words, spoken with 
deep seriousness. Through all this interview, and 
the history of painful, personal relations, there was 
no word nor thought impugning the motives or pur- 
poses of the outgoing Secretary. It was a deeply 
interesting insight into the character of Abraham 
Lincoln. 

It will be remembered that the name of William 
Pitt Fessenden was next sent to the Senate for 
Secretary of the Treasury. His appointment grew 
out of this interview, and here is another of the 
proofs of peculiar ability in Mr. Lincoln to accom- 
modate difficulties and reconcile differences. He 
saw that Mr. Fessenden would be acceptable to the 
Senate and country. He had long been chairman 
of the Finance Committee of the Senate, and was 
a sagacious, prudent and able man. Instead of 
further depression of the public credit, it rose, and 
never again receded. 

The history of this episode in the life of Abraham 
Lincoln would be incomplete, and fail to illustrate 
the exceeding purity and generosity of his nature, 
without calling to mind how soon after he was able 
to appoint Mr. Chase Chief Justice of the Supreme 
Court. The great office was sought by more than 
one man, through friends, and there were those who 
thought they had secured for Mr. Chase the appoint- 
ment, but Abraham Lincoln saw in it a fitting act 



566 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

for his performance In that Chase was worthy of it, 
and this was the reason for the appointment. 

The President performed a great act in this ap- 
pointment, and one of which few men are capable. 

It is a vain proceeding to try to correct a popular 
error which has universal acceptance, I suppose one 
might as well attempt to stem the tide of an estab- 
lished theology among its cohorts ; yet it is due 
to truth to state it, as we have it from its foun- 
tains. 

In the recent eulogy by Canon Farrar of General 
Grant, reference is made to this popular error con- 
cerning Abraham Lincoln — that he split rails. 
Every one, so to say, believes that Mr. Lincoln in 
the beginning of his life split rails on some one or 
more occasions. So far as it signifies that he was 
one of the many humble people who populated the 
West, and grew to the highest estate in his land, it 
may be accepted. But Mr. Lincoln told the writer 
that he never split a rail, and he described his con- 
fusion when, after his nomination for President, the 
people came to congratulate him, bringing on their 
shoulders the rails he had split. What should he do 
about it ? It was not true, and his impulse was then 
and there to correct it ; but here were masses of 
men taking their own means of expressing their joy 
at the event of his nomination. Should he dampen 
the ardor of his supporters on the threshold of a 



BY JOHN CON NESS. 567 

campaign, or let It go on, and treat it as a means or 
incident in our elections ? 

He concluded to let it pass. The loose tradition 
originating in the enthusiasm and cunning of his 
followers has now passed into the realm of accepted 
facts. 

Though his humble beginning gave ample room 
for this story, and though it seems to have contrib- 
uted to the simplicity of his life rather than other- 
wise, as I am asked to write of him whom the 
nation reveres and loves, it must be done as he re- 
vealed himself to me. 

One morning the writer called on the President to 
talk with him on some public business, and as soon 
as we met, he began by asking if I knew Captain 
Maltby, now living in California, saying, " He is vis- 
iting here and his wife is with him." I replied that I 
knew of him, and had heard he was in Washington. 
He said that when he first came to Springfield, 
where he was unknown, and a carpet-bag contained 
all he owned in the world, and he was needing 
friends, Captain Maltby and his wife took him into 
their modest dwelling ; that he lived with them 
while he " put out his shingle " and sought business. 

He had known Maltby during the period of the 
Black Hawk War. No one was ever treated more 
kindly than he was by them. He had risen in the 
world, and they were poor, and Captain Maltby 



568 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

wanted some place which would give him a living. 
In fact, said he, " Maltby wants to be Superintend- 
ent of the Mint at San Francisco, but he is hardly 
equal to that. I want to find some place for him, and 
into which he will fit, and I know nothing about 
these things." I said: "There is a place — Super- 
intendent of Indian Affairs in California — where the 
incumbent should be superseded for cause, and the 
place is simply a great farm, where the government 
supplies the means of carrying it on ; there is an 
abundance of Indian labor, and making it produce 
and accounting for the products are the duties prin- 
cipally." He replied, "Maltby is the man for this 
place," and he was made entirely happy by being 
able to serve an old friend and good man. 

Having had the closest relations with Mr. Lincoln 
for some years while I was Senator, many of his 
anecdotes, apposite stories, etc., became known to 
me. Yet most of them seem inconsequential, and 
calculated to take away from our best estimate of 
him, which for all great considerations had better 
not be disturbed. 

One occurs to me as amusing and illustrative 
in more respects than one. 

Before Fessenden took the place of Secretary of 
the Treasury, in 1864, he and I often jarred in the 
Senate. He was one of the oldest Republican Sen- 
ators, and when the South seceded, the high places 



BY JOHN CONNESS. 569 

of the Senate were distributed by the RepubHcan 
Senators among themselves. This gave great conse- 
quence to them, and they acquired the habit of con- 
trol in the body before my term began in 1863. 

Then there had always been in the Senate an aris- 
tocracy of age — length of service there. This was 
felt by such men as Fessenden, Foster, Collamer, and 
others. It was my misfortune not to secure the ap- 
proval of Mr. Fessenden, and unwilling to investi- 
gate our questions arising out of Spanish and Mexi- 
can origin, he was equally unwilling to take our 
statements in regard to them ; therefore, there were 
frequent sharp disagreements with Mr. Fessenden, 
and our measures, if passed upon favorably, must be 
carried against him. 

When he became Secretary of the Treasury his 
magnanimity failed him, and he carried the temper of 
legislative controversy into the administration of his 
office. At this time, or a few months after, there 
were two leading places in the Internal Revenue ser- 
vice in California to be filled. Two names had been 
presented by my colleague for those places, and Mr. 
Fessenden wished to gratify him by their appoint- 
ment. No more unfit men could be chosen, and I 
went to the President to hinder the work of my col- 
league and the Secretary, saying to him that he could 
not afford to give commissions to the persons in 
question. Always considerate to me, he accepted my 



570 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Statements, and by this time Mr. Fessenden had 
again been chosen Senator by Maine, to take office 
after the 4th of March next ensuing. The Presi- 
dent, taking this into account, but not naming it, 
said : 

"■ Suppose we wait awhile about this matter, and 
then it will be all right." 

In this way he saw how to avoid discourtesy to the 
Secretary and at the same time accomplish his pur- 
pose. After the new Secretary came in, through Mr. 
Fessenden he was disposed to make, or to recom- 
mend the President to make, those offensive appoint- 
ments. Calling on Mr. Lincoln again one morning 
on this subject, he took up a card, and, addressing his 
new Secretary on it as follows, closed out the trans- 
action : 

" I think that Lewis A. Gunn for assessor and 
Frank Soule for collector are about right." When 
writing Soule, he said : 

" How do you write this ? S-o-u-W with a twichet 
over it. Is that it ? " 

And, assenting, the " twichet " was put over the 
"e" and the transaction ended. 

He had the peculiar tact of avoiding difficulties, 
and yet doing nearly the right thing. 

One of his consummate arts in this respect does 
not seem to be so well known. When opposing, 
strong political forces brought their cases before him. 



B Y JOHN CON NESS. 5 7 1 

and disturbing consequences would come out of an 
immediate decision by him, he would let them maul 
each other, and wrestle like physical champions until 
both were "winded," tired out with the contest, and 
then he would decide, the defeated party being more 
ready to acknowledge the other was the strongest. 

JOHN CONNESS. 



XXXIL 

John B. Alley. 

AMONG the greatest, wisest and best who ever 
lived in any country, was the man who was at 
the head of this Republic during the most trying, 
perplexing and desperate internal struggle that ever 
afflicted, destroyed, or saved a nation. 

Far-seeino-, sagacious, calm and modest, wherever 
placed — whether in humble private life or upon the 
highest pinnacle of fame and power — he was the 
same unpretending, and apparently, in his own esti- 
mation, inconsequential personage. 

It was my good fortune to know him well during 
the whole period of his administration as President. 
I greatly admired him. He was a many-sided per- 
son, and for this reason, perhaps, the estimate by 
different individuals who had the same opportunities 
of knowing him, was widely different. Many of the 
most distinguished men of the country, who were in 
daily intercourse with him, thought but little of his 
capacity as a statesman. And while entirely true, it 
is hardly to be believed, that those in both houses of 
Congress who knew him best had so little confidence 
in his judgment and ability to administer the govern- 



574 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

ment that very few of the members of the Senate 
and of the House were in .favor of his renomination 
for the Presidency in 1864. 

But the masses of the Republicans rose in their 
might and demanded his re-nomination and re-elec- 
tion. After the close of the war, when his great 
good judgment and his patriotism had been seen and 
read of all men, the conviction was universal that 
the wisest thing had been done in calling him for a 
second time to the Presidential chair. 

My first knowledge of, and acquaintance with, Mr. 
Lincoln was in the summer of 1856. In the Na- 
tional Republican Convention of that year, which 
nominated Fremont for President, " Abe Lincoln," 
as the Illinois delegation familiarly called him, re- 
ceived a large support for the second office in the 
nation. He was a quaint but conspicuous character 
at that time, and all who knew him well seemed to 
love and admire him. He had the reputation then 
of being the finest story teller in all the " West." 
My acquaintance with him was very slight, until 
after his election as President, when I was a member 
of Congress — I continued as such during the whole 
of his Presidency. 

When he was nominated for the Presidency, in 
i860, Mr. Seward and his friends were greatly dis- 
appointed. Mr. Seward, himself, apparently ex- 
hibited, under his discomfiture, great philosophy, 



BY JOHN B. ALLEY. 575 

and, in the several speeches which he made urging 
Mr. Lincoln's election, he displayed a magnanimity 
that challenged the admiration of the whole Repub- 
lican party. They were the ablest and most exhaus- 
tive and effective speeches that were delivered by 
anybody during that campaign. 

Lincoln had not been long in the Presidential 
chair before the people seemed instinctively to per- 
ceive the kind of man that he was. When nomi- 
nated, the person who first received the information 
in Washington was the great leader of the Northern 
Democracy, Stephen A. Douglas. I happened to be 
in the Senate Chamber when Mr. Douglas received 
the telegram announcing the fact. He went with me 
from the Senate Chamber to the House of Repre- 
sentatives, of which I was then a member, and a 
small squad of Republicans gathered around him to 
hear him read the telegram. After reading it, he 
paused for a few moments and then said of his great 
antagonist, " Well, gentlemen, you have nominated 
a very able and a very honest man." 

To me he always seemed to be a very great man. 
In all the qualities of true greatness of character and 
mind he was the equal, if not the superior, of all the 
great statesmen that I have ever known. Of all 
these public men, none seemed to have so little pride 
of opinion. He was always learning and did not 
adhere to views which he found to be erroneous. 



576 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

simply because he had once formed and held them. 
I remember that he once expressed an opinion to me, 
on an important matter, quite different from what he 
had expressed a short time before, and I said, " Mr. 
President, you have changed your mind entirely 
within a short time." He replied: "Yes, I have; 
and I don't think much of a man who is not wiser 
to-day than he was yesterday." A remark full of 
wisdom and sound philosophy. In this respect, 
the contrast between him and the statesmen that 
preceded him was very marked. A few years be- 
fore, the great political lights of the day spent a 
great deal of time in showing to the country that 
their opinions upon political matters remained un- 
changed. When Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun 
Daniel Webster and John Ouincy Adams were ac- 
cused of changing their views, they contended, with 
masterly ability and great persistency, that their 
views were unaltered ; that circumstances only had 
altered, not themselves ; seeming to feel that it was 
an imputation upon their judgment to be accused 
of changing their mind. Mr. Lincoln was so sen- 
sible, so broad-minded, so philosophical, so noble in 
his nature, that he saw only increasing wisdom in 
enlarged experience and observation. 

He was so simple, so child-like, so sincere, that it 
seemed to me that that was the chief reason why he 
was so little appreciated during his Presidency by 



BY JOHN B. ALLEY. 577 

his compeers in public life. He exhibited a degree 
of wisdom and firmness of purpose, a sagacity and 
soundness of judgment absolutely without parallel 
among the statesmen of his day ; while his toleration 
of difference of opinion, his sagacity in harmonizing 
discordant elements and his politic treatment of 
envious and ambitious rivals, exceeded anything I 
have ever seen in any other of our statesmen. In 
illustration of this I may say, that he had in his 
Cabinet several rivals in whose judgment or fitness 
he had but little confidence. Yet he managed to 
make them and the country believe that he was on 
the most excellent terms with each and all of them. 

Mr. Lincoln was, as a whole, the most unique 
character in all history. His quaint ways, humorous 
stories, always pertinent and illustrative of a point 
and frequently furnishing in themselves a conclusive 
argument, made him an enigma to many people, even 
to those who knew him well and considered them- 
selves fully competent to judge and measure him. 

In small and unimportant matters, Mr. Lincoln 
was so yielding that many thought his excessive 
amiability was born of weakness. But, in matters of 
vital importance, he was as firm as a rock. Neither 
Congress nor his Cabinet could, in the sliorhtest de- 
gree, influence his action on great questions, against 
the convictions of his patriotic judgment. 

Senator Sumner and myself called upon him, one 
37 



578 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM UN COIN 

morning, to urge the appointment of a Massachusetts 
man to be a Secretary of Legation, chiefly upon the 
ground of his superior qualifications. We urged the 
appointment somewhat persistently, but Mr. Lincoln 
said emphatically, " No ; " that he should give the 
place to an applicant from another State, who was 
backed by strong influence, although he acknowl- 
edged that he did not think him fit for the position. 
We were naturally indignant, and wished to know if 
one of acknowledged fitness was to be rejected be- 
cause he was a Massachusetts man, and one whom 
he was willing to say was not fit, was to be appointed. 
"Yes," said the President, "that is just the reason" 
— and facetiously added, " I suppose you two Mas- 
sachusetts gentlemen think that your State could 
furnish suitable men for every diplomatic and con- 
sulate station the Government has to fill." We 
replied that we thought it could. He appeased our 
displeasure by saying he thought so too, and that he 
considered Massachusetts the banner State of the 
Union, and admired its institutions and people so 
much that he had sent his " Bob," meaning his son 
Robert, to Harvard for an education. He said he 
could do nothing further in the way of appointments 
for Massachusetts, because he could not afford to and 
she did not need it. Massachusetts, he said, was in- 
telligent and patriotic. Her people would do right 
and support his administration, even if he offended 



BY JOHN B. ALLEY. 579 

scores of her most esteemed public men. " But," he 
added, " not so with this other State. It is a close 
State. I can mention half a dozen of her public men, 
Republicans, who have influence enough, combined, 
if I should seriously offend them, to carry the State 
over to the other side. For this reason," he con- 
cluded, " I cannot afford to disregard the wishes of 
these men." His reasons, together with his shrewd 
compliment to Massachusetts, restored our good 
humor, and we went away satisfied. 

It was generally believed by many of the friends of 
Mr. Seward, that the latter ran the administration. 
Nothing could be farther from the fact. I know, of my 
own personal knowledge, that Mr. Lincoln would not 
allow Mr. Seward to send any very important dis- 
patch to England, until he had first shown it to Sen- 
ator Sumner, who was chairman of the Committee 
on Foreign Relations. Mr. Lincoln once told me 
that he had the greatest confidence in the judgment 
of our Massachusetts Senator in everything pertain- 
ing to foreign relations. One day Mr. Seward wTOte 
a dispatch, to be sent to England, to which Mr. 
Sumner strongly objected. Both gentlemen were 
summoned to the White House with the dispatch. 
Mr. Lincoln said that it must not be sent. He took 
his pen, erased a portion and interlined his own 
words. He said that he feared a war with England, 
should the dispatch, as first written, be sent. It was 



580 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

sent as corrected by the President. I was told of 
this confidentially at the time, and never mentioned 
it to any one until some years afterwards. When 
Grant was President, the dispatch was discovered in 
the archives of the State Department and exhibited 
one day to Grant and his Cabinet as illustrative of 
the wisdom of Lincoln. Grant exclaimed, " What 
prudence and sound judgment this incident displays !" 
Mr. Lincoln was always just and magnanimous. 
His conduct toward Chief-Justice Chase was an exhi- 
bition of magnanimity and freedom from all revenge- 
ful and petty feelings, seldom animating a human 
bosom. When Mr. Chase was dismissed — as he re- 
garded it — from the Cabinet, he visited some of his 
old friends in New England — among others, myself. 
He was exceedingly bitter and denunciatory of Mr. 
Lincoln, and so open in his opposition that some of 
his friends rebuked him. They warned him that it 
would injure his chance for the Chief-Justiceship. 
They reminded him that the Republican party gen- 
erally looked to him as the most fitting successor of 
Chief -Justice Roger B. Taney, whose health was 
greatly impaired, and who, it was clearly seen, could 
not long survive. In a few weeks Mr. Taney died, 
and Mr. Chase became a prominent candidate. He 
expressed an ardent desire to obtain the appoint- 
ment. Senator Sumner and myself, who were great 
friends and admirers of Mr. Chase, went to Wash- 



BY JOHN B. ALLEY. 58 I 

ington to plead with the President in his behalf. 
We found, to our dismay, that the President had 
heard of these bitter criticisms of Mr. Chase upon 
himself and his administration. Mr. Lincoln urged 
many of Mr. Chase's defects, to discover, as we after- 
wards learned, how his objections could be answered. 
We were both discouraged and made up our minds 
that the President did not mean to appoint Mr. 
Chase. It really seemed too much to expect of poor 
human nature. But early one morning I went to the 
White House, found the President in his library, and 
was cordially received. As I entered he made to me 
this declaration : " I have something to tell you that 
will make you happy. I have just sent Mr. Chase 
word that he is to be appointed Chief-Justice, and 
you are the first man I have told of it." I said : 
" Mr. President, this is an exhibition of magnanimity 
and patriotism that could hardly be expected of any 
one. After what he has said against your adminis- 
tration, which has undoubtedly been reported to you, 
it was hardly to be expected that you would bestow 
the most important office within your gift on such a 
man." His quaint reply was : " Although I may have 
appeared to you and to Mr. Sumner to have been 
opposed to Chase's appointment, there never has 
been a moment since the breath left old Taney's body 
that I did not conceive it to be the best thing to do 
to appoint Mr. Chase to that high office ; and to 



582 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

have done otherwise I should have been recreant to 
my convictions of duty to the Republican party and to 
the country." I repeated again my sense of his mag- 
nanimity and his patriotism in making the appoint- 
ment. He replied : " As to his talk about me, I do 
not mind that. Chase is, on the whole, a pretty good 
fellow and a very able man. His only trouble is 
that he has 'the White House fever' a little too 
bad, but I hope this may cure him and that he will 
be satisfied." 

An instance of Mr. Lincoln's great firmness and 
sagacity was exhibited when all the Republican sen- 
ators, save one, voted to appoint a committee to 
wait upon the President and ask for the dismissal 
of a member of his Cabinet, believing and alleging 
his disloyalty to the administration. He gave no 
heed to their request, but afterwards remarked, that 
he could take care of a secret enemy in his Cabinet, 
if he had one, a great deal easier than he could 
take care of an open enemy, if he was a man of 
power, outside of the Cabinet. Those senators 
afterwards saw and acknowledged his superior wis- 
dom ; but it was a fearful thing for a President to 
disregard the unanimous request of the United 
States Senate. 

No man was ever more thoroughly imbued with 
the conviction of the wickedness and cruelty of 
slavery than Mr. Lincoln. He who had "Charity 



BY JOHN B. ALLEY. 583 

for all and malice toward none," could not overlook 
and forgive the slave-trader. While I was in Con- 
gress, a petition was sent me from the city of New- 
buryport, in my district, numerously signed, praying 
the President to pardon a man in jail in that city. 
He had been convicted of commanding a vessel 
engaged in the slave-trade, and was sentenced to 
several years' imprisonment and a fine of one thou- 
sand dollars. He had served out his term of im- 
prisonment, but could not pay his fine. The petition 
was accompanied by a letter, from the prisoner, to 
the President, and by a request that I would present 
the petition and letter to Mr. Lincoln in person. 
The letter contained an urgent and pathetic appeal 
for pardon, acknowledging the crime and the justice 
of the sentence, and declaring that he must spend 
his life in prison if the condition of freedom was the 
payment of that fine, for he had not a cent in the 
world. The President read the letter and petition, 
and remarked : " I believe I am kindly enough in 
nature and can be moved to pity and to pardon the 
perpetrator of almost the worst crime that the mind 
of man can conceive or the arm of man can exe- 
cute ; but any man, who, for paltry gain and stimu- 
lated only by avarice, can rob Africa of her children 
to sell into interminable bondage, I never will par- 
don, and he may stay and rot in jail before he will 
ever get relief from me." 



584 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

He was so kind-hearted and lenient, and virtually 
set aside so many sentences of courts martial, that 
the commanding generals remonstrated very often, 
insisting that he was ruining the discipline of the 
army. 

I never asked him to pardon a soldier or to 
release one from the army, for good cause, that he 
did not do it. On one occasion I was at the White 
House and in the ante-room were scores of people 
waiting for an opportunity to obtain admission to 
see the President. At the end of the room sat a 
gray headed old man upon the window seat, sobbing 
as though his heart would break. Moved by com- 
passion I asked him what his trouble was. He said 
that his darling boy, 19 years of age, was sentenced 
to be shot, and he had been waiting two days to see 
the President but could not get in, and to-morrow 
noon the boy was to be shot. I asked him to fol- 
low me, saying that I would take him in to see the 
President. He told his story to Mr. Lincoln, who 
replied with much feeling that he could not do it, 
for the commanding general had just telegraphed 
him from Fortress Monroe, where the boy was, 
imploring him to cease interfering with the sen- 
tences of courts martial. But the abundant tears 
and imploring looks of the old man were too much 
for the kind-hearted President. He said, " Let the 
generals telegraph, if they please, but I am going 



BY JOHN B. ALLEY. 585 

to pardon that young soldier." He immediately 
sent a dispatch to suspend the execution of the sen- 
tence until further orders from him. Thereupon the 
old man burst out crying afresh, and in a tremu- 
lous voice said, " Mr. President, that is not a par- 
don, it only asks for a suspension until further 
orders from you." " My dear man," exclaimed 
Mr. Lincoln, " if your son lives until I order him 
shot, he will live longer than ever Methusaleh did." 
The old man departed, invoking blessings upon the 
head of the good President. 

Mr. Lincoln was a thorough and most adroit 
politician as well as statesman, and in politics always 
adopted the means to the end, fully believing that 
in vital issues, " success was a duty." 

In further illustration of this feeline and senti- 
ment, I need only refer to his action and conduct 
in procuring the passage of the constitutional 
amendment abolishing slavery. It required a two- 
thirds vote of Congress to enable the amendments 
to the Constitution to be sent to the legislatures 
for ratification, and there were two votes lacking to 
make two-thirds, which, Mr. Lincoln said, " must be 
procured." Two members of the House were sent 
for and Mr. Lincoln said that those two votes must 
be procured. When asked, " How ? " he remarked : 
" I am President of the United States, clothed with 
great power. The abolition of slavery by constitu- 



586 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

tional provision settles the fate, for all coming time, 
not only of the millions now in bondage, but of 
unborn millions to come — a measure of such impor- 
tance that those two votes must be prociLved. I leave 
it to you to determine how it shall be done ; but 
remember that I am President of the United States, 
clothed with immense power, and I expect you to 
procure those votes." These gentlemen under- 
stood the significance of the remark. The votes 
were procured, the constitutional amendment was 
passed and slavery was abolished forever. 

Some, I know, would criticise Mr. Lincoln's meth- 
ods. But he was a thorough politician, and believed 
most fully that in this case the consequences result- 
ing from his action justified him in resorting to 
almost any means to procure for that down-trodden 
race such a boon. 

He never failed in obtaining a confirmation by 
the Senate of any of his nominations, or in carrying 
through Congress any measure that he cared much 
about. He used his patronage where he thought it 
"would do the most good," in accomplishing the 
object desired, if that object was an important one 
to the country. 

One of Mr. Lincoln's greatest weaknesses seemed 
to be in being more or less oblivious to the faults of 
dear friends. Once he made an exceedingly obnox- 
ious nomination for a United States Judgeship. A 



BY JOHN B. ALLEY. 587 

large majority of the Senate were Indignant and 
opposed to the nomination. The nominee was a 
very old friend of the President and he was deter- 
mined to have him confirmed. A distinguished 
senator told me that the Senate would never vote 
to confirm. I replied, " You do not know Mr. Lin- 
coln. He greatly desires the confirmation, and it 
will be done." " Never, never," said he. But he was 
confirmed, and Senator Sumner was the only one 
who spoke against it. 

Mr. Lincoln, though not parsimonious, was a 
frueal man, He told me that when he came to 
Washington, he was worth about $15,000. When 
he died, his administrator. Judge Davis, said that 
he left about $75,000, being one of the very few 
Presidents who went out of the office as well off as 
when they went in. 

Mr. Lincoln did not claim to be, and was not, an 
orator in the highest sense, yet he was a powerful 
and persuasive speaker, a good lawyer and great ad- 
vocate. Judge Richardson, of Illinois, a democrat 
of democrats, himself a great debater, as the records 
of both houses of Congress show, told me that he 
met Lincoln once in the conflict of debate upon the 
stump, and he said that Lincoln annihilated him, 
and he regarded him as the ablest debater, with 
perhaps a single exception, that ever trod the soil of 
Illinois. 



588 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

He was anxious, as the time for his re-election 
was approaching, that that element of the demo- 
cratic party which rendered us such powerful aid in 
the war, should be represented on the National 
ticket. Therefore the second place on the ticket 
was offered to General Butler, but he declined, unless 
the President would agree to die in three months 
after his inauguration. It was then offered, at Mr, 
Lincoln's request, to Andrew Johnson, a pretty poor 
selection as compared with that venerable patriot 
and statesman, Vice-President Hannibal Hamlin. 

Mr. Lincoln personally told me that General Scott 
was responsible for the appointment of General 
McClellan to the head of the army — entirely so. 
He himself was not a military man — did not pretend 
to be — and yet I never found any one of the leading 
generals, or any civilian, who had such a clear and 
accurate knowledge of all the movements of the 
army, and who conceived and understood so per- 
fectly their strategic movements. 

He was in no sense a brilliant conversationalist, 
yet he was so logical in his discourse and his illus- 
trations were so pertinent, that he always com- 
manded the attention, and seldom failed to excite 
the admiration of his listeners. In conversation with 
some of the most eminent senators durinof Mr. Lin- 
coin's administration, it was remarked that Mr. Lin- 
coln had said some things which exhibited more pro- 



BY JOHN B. ALLEY. 589 

found thought, more intellectual grasp and more 
power of statement than anything that had ever 
been said by mortal man. Mr. Lincoln's Gettysburg 
speech, all must admit, is a demonstration of this 
statement. 

He was an exceedingly patient and even-tempered 
man. I have often seen him placed in the most pro- 
voking and trying positions, and never but once 
knew him to lose his temper. That was the day 
after he had received very bad news from the army. 
A couple of office-seekers who knew him well, 
intercepted him, on his way from the White House 
to the War Department, and teased him for an 
office which he told them he could not give. They 
persisted in their importunity until it was unbeara- 
ble. The President, evidently worn out by care and 
anxiety, turned upon them, and such an angry and 
terrific tirade, against those two incorrigible bores, I 
never before heard from the lips of mortal man. 

Mr. Lincoln greatly deplored the indiscriminate 
abuse of public men. The effect of which was to 
keep out of the public service many sensitive men, 
who were able, patriotic and wise. I told him an 
anecdote, once, told me by one of Daniel Webster's 
most intimate and cherished friends. Mr. Webster 
was accused of using the secret service money of 
the State Department for his own private use while 
Secretary of State, and a committee of investigation 



590 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

was appointed — at the head of which was Jefferson 
Davis. The committee exonerated Webster, and 
Mr. Davis related of John Quincy Adams, that 
Mr. Adams and Mr. Webster at that time were very 
hostile to each other and were not on speaking 
terms. He said Mr. Adams came to him and 
begged him not to allow any political or personal 
hostility to influence him to taint the reputation, 
in the slightest degree, of Mr. Webster, unless the 
proof was of the most positive character — for, said 
he, Mr. Webster is a very great man, of world-wide 
renown, and to taint his reputation would be an 
irreparable injury to the nation. The glory and 
wealth of a nation consists not in its material inter- 
ests so much as in the name and fame of her 
distinguished and great men. The chief glory and 
wealth of England consisted in the great historic 
names of which she was so justly proud. Mr. Lin- 
coln exclaimed, " How just, noble and patriotic such 
sentiments were — and oh ! " said he, " if the Press 
of this country could be made to inhale something 
of this spirit of patriotism and fairness- — what would 
I not give ? " 

In his religious views, Mr. Lincoln was very 
nearly what we would call a freethinker. While he 
reflected a great deal upon religious subjects, he 
communicated his thoughts to a very few. He had 
little faith in the popular religion of the times. He 



BY JOHN B. ALLEY. 59 1 

had a broad conception of the goodness and power 
of an overruling Providence, and said to me, one day, 
that he feh assured the author of our being, whether 
called God or Nature, it mattered little which, would 
deal very mercifully with poor erring humanity in 
the other, and he hoped better, world. He was as 
free as possible from all sectarian thought, feeling or 
sentiment. No man was more tolerant of the opin- 
ion and feelings of others in the direction of relig- 
ious sentiment, or had less faith in religious dog- 
mas. By many people he was thought to be a 
spiritualist. This was very far from being true. 
At the time he lost his little son, to whom he was 
greatly attached, Mrs. Lincoln sought consolation 
and comfort from the spiritualists, and I think she 
did believe in spiritualism. It is probable that the 
frequent visits of spiritualists at the White House, 
which the President permitted chiefly as a matter of 
consolation to Mrs. Lincoln, were the cause of the 
circulation of such a report. While Mr. Lincoln 
was perfectly honest and upright, and led a blame- 
less life, he was in no sense what might be consid- 
ered a religious man. His morality was of the 
highest type. He was truly good as he was truly 
great. 

Wonderful man ! I never expect to look upon thy 
like again ! 

JOHN B. ALLEY. 




V a 




"^^i-irT-^tf^^^^i^ 



XXXIII. 

Thomas Hicks. 

WHEN the news of Mr. Lincoln's nomina- 
tion reached the City of New York, a 
leading publishing house engaged me to go to 
Springfield to paint a portrait of him, a litho- 
graph of which was to be used in the coming 
campaign. A day later, I happened to be in the 
editorial rooms of the New York Tribune, when 
Horace Greeley returned from the Chicago Con- 
vention. As he entered, stained with the dust 
and grime of travel, the staff crowded around 
him in great excitement to hear from him the 
details of the Convention. While he was relating 
some of the stirring incidents of that memorable 
day, he took, from the side pocket of his coat, a 
wood-cut which appeared like a caricature of a 
very plain man, and holding it up, that all might 
see it, he said, with an air of triumph : " There, I 
say, that is a good head to go before the people ; " 
and we all agreed that it was. This picture had 
been made quickly, when Mr. Lincoln's chances for 
the nomination became probable, and was roughly 
done ; but it suggested a man of strong character. 

3« 



594 



REMINISCENCES OE ABKAJLIM IJNCOLN 



After the excitement had somewhat quieted, I told 
them I was commissioned to paint a portrait of 
Mr. Lincoln, and Mr. Dana kindly gave me a 
letter of introduction to Mr. Herndon, of Spring- 
field, who was a former partner of Mr. Lincoln, 

With Dana's letter, my luggage and my paint- 
ing traps, I left New York on Friday evening 
and arrived at Chicago Monday morning, and was 
disappointed to find that there was no train to 
Springfield before five in the afternoon ; but the 
day was serene, and, as I was strolling by the lake, 
I saw many newly-arrived Swedes, scattered in 
groups of men, women and children, who were 
washing their clothes in the lake, after the long 
and dreary voyage. These emigrants, as they 
worked in the broad sunlight against the blue 
water, with their sunburnt faces and their native 
costumes, were very picturesque, and I could not 
resist the temptation of making some hurried 
sketches of them. 

After an entertaining and delightful day, at five 
o'clock, I took the night train for Springfield, where 
I arrived at daylight ; and having ascertained, at my 
hotel, that Mr. Herndon lived quite out of the 
town, after breakfasting, I went in search of him, 
and found him working among the flowers in the 
garden in front of his house. I gave him Mr. 
Dana's letter, which seemed to please him, and he 



BV THOMAS HICKS. 595 

asked many questions about his friend Dana and 
other friends in the East. As the sequel to our 
pleasant conversation, he courteously invited me to 
take a family breakfast with him, which I had to 
decline ; we, however, arranged that he should call 
at my hotel at nine o'clock, and go with me to Mr. 
Lincoln's office, which I found was in a building in 
proximity to the State House. 

Herndon came in due time ; and when I stood in 
the presence of a tall, gaunt man, with a pleasant 
expression on his well-marked features, and had a 
genial, hearty hand-shake from his long, swinging 
arm, I saw that in my subject there was plenty of 
character with which to make a desirable likeness. 
When he had read Dana's letter, which explained 
the object of my visit, he said : " Yes, I will do in 
this matter what my friends in New York wish of 
me ; and I am much obliged to you, sir, for coming 
so far to paint my likeness for them." He then 
asked me if I wanted a particular kind of light for 
my work. There was a very suitable light in his 
office, and it was quickly arranged that I should do 
my work there, and that he should give me sittings 
from eight to nine o'clock in the morning, and at any 
time during the remainder of the day when he was 
not too much engaged. In an hour I had the easel 
up and had commenced the first sitting. Mr. Lin- 
coln was already taking an interest in the work ; 



596 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

and, at the conclusion of the sitting, during which I 
had made the usual charcoal sketch, looking at it, 
he said, " I see the likeness, sir." 

Mr. Lincoln had given up his law practice, that he 
might devote his time to the campaign. From ten 
o'clock in the morning till four in the afternoon, he 
had many visitors, most of whom were from the 
Northern and Western States. Many of them were 
strangers who came to pay their respects to him, 
and others came to re-establish old friendships or to 
strengthen new ones ; but all were delighted to listen 
to his quaint remarks and humorous stories. 

During one of the usual sittings a gentleman 
from Massachusetts called, and, introducing himself, 
said, he was on his way to St. Louis and had 
stopped over at Springfield to pay his respects to 
the future President. Mr. Lincoln asked his guest 
many questions, concerning the prospects of Repub- 
lican success in the Eastern States, and got from 
him very hopeful answers. Alluding to the portrait 
in progress, he remarked : ** I suppose, Mr. Lincoln, 
you have to give a good deal of your time to this 
kind of work." Mr. Lincoln said, *' No, this is the 
first time that I have had this specific sort of picture 
made, but I have had the sun pictures made several 
times." On the office wall was hanging a very dark 
photograph with a light background, and his guest 
from the East said, " I see a photograph of you 



BV THOMAS HICKS. 597 

there," pointing to the one on the wall, " but it does 
not appear to have any sun in it." " No," said Mr. 
Lincoln, with his peculiar smile, " Parson Brownlow 
says I am a nigger ; and if he had judged alone 
from that picture, he would have had some ground 
for his assertion." 

I found that Mr. Lincoln's temper was even, his 
voice mild and persuasive, and that the habit of his 
mind was to advise, rather than to rebuke, which 
was exemplified in the following incident. My 
color tubes were on a table at the side of the room. 
One day Mr. Lincoln's little son, Tad, with a com- 
panion, came noiselessly into the office. His father 
was sitting at his desk with his back to them, and so 
absorbed that he did not hear them come in. I was 
busy with the portrait. The little fellows got among 
my paints. They took the brightest blue, yellow 
and red. Then they squeezed from a tube, into 
their little palms, a lot of the red, and smeared it on 
the wall ; then they took the blue and smeared that 
in another place, and afterward they smeared the 
yellow. I saw their excitement and mischief from 
the beginning, but held my peace and enjoyed 
watching the enthusiastic young colorists, as they 
made their first effort in brilliant wall decoration, 
while, getting the paint all over their hands, their 
faces and their clothes, the little fellows were as still 
as mice. At this juncture of affairs, Tad's father 



598 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

turned in his chair and saw their condition and what 
they had done. He said, in the mildest tone and 
with the greatest affection, " Boys ! boys ! you 
mustn't meddle with Mr. Hicks's paints ; now run 
home and have your faces and hands washed ; " and 
the little fellows took his advice and left the office 
without a word. Mr. Lincoln was often silent and 
thoughtful, but he never wore a frown, and I loved 
him from my first day with him. 

One morning, when he was giving me an unusu- 
ally early sitting, two tall, handsome, young men 
came into the office without announcing their names. 
Mr. Lincoln shook hands with them in his hearty, 
welcoming way, and asked them to sit opposite to 
him, "so that," as he put it, "the gentleman can go 
on with his work." He began to talk to his young 
visitors about the weather, which was very fine just 
at that time. He asked them, when they came to 
Springfield ? How the crops were their way ? and 
many other questions, getting only monosyllabic 
answers. Then there was a long pause, and I saw 
that he was puzzled. Finally, he broke the silence 
by saying : " The folks are all well ? " One of the 
young men said : " Mother is not well, and she sent 
us up to inquire of you how the suit about the Wells 
property is getting on." Mr. Lincoln, in the same 
even tone of voice with which he had asked the 
questions, said : " Give my best wishes and respects 



BV THOMAS HICKS. 599 

to your mother, and tell her that I have so many 
outside matters to attend to now, that I have put 
that case and others in the hands of a lawyer friend 
of mine, and if you will call on him (giving name 
and address) he will give you the information you 
want." After they had gone, I said : " Mr. Lincoln, 
you did not seem to know the young men?" He 
laughed and said, " No, I had never seen them be- 
fore, and I had to beat about the bush till I found 
who they were. It was uphill work, but I topped it 
at last." Then visitors came in and the sitting 
closed for the morning. 

As the work on the portrait advanced, Mr. Lincoln 
became more and more interested in its progress. 
At one time he said, " It interests me to see how, by 
adding a touch here and a touch there, you make it 
look more like me. I do not understand it, but I 
see it is a vocation in which the work is very fine." 
I said, " That is the reason why painting is called 
one of the fine arts." He said, " I once read a book 
which gave an account of some Italian painters and 
their work in the fifteenth century, and, taking the 
author's statement for it, they must have had a great 
talent for the work they had to do." Then visitors 
claimed his attention for the rest of the day. 

Once, during a sitting, I asked Mr. Lincoln how 
he first heard the news of his nomination. He said, 
" There were a dozen or twenty of us in the tele- 



600 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

graph office, and we were receiving dispatches from 
the convention every few minutes, and as they came 
the operator handed them to me to read to those 
present. Then one came announcing that my name 
was before the convention, but I had no idea that 
there was any chance of my nomination. However, 
the next dispatch brought the report. I couldn't 
read this one to them, so I said, there is a httle 
woman down at the house who will be interested in 
this, and, handing them the dispatch, I left them to 
discuss it among themselves ; and this is the way I 
first got the news." 

The Republican State Convention was over, and 
Richard Yates had received the nomination for gov- 
ernor. He was frequently in the office consulting 
with Mr. Lincoln on the politics of the State, and it 
was a streak of good luck for Yates that he had for 
his adviser a man so wise, discreet and determined. 
The Democratic State Convention was in session 
the week I was in Springfield, and an interesting 
episode it was. After the daily adjournments the 
delegates used to come in squads of ten or twenty 
to pay their respects to Mr. Lincoln, and the odd 
thing about these calls was, that, in shaking hands 
with him, they invariably addressed him as Mr. 
President. Some of them, more familiar than 
others, before the interview was over, would end by 
calliner him Abe. 



BV THOMAS N/CA'S. 6oi 

The final adjournment of the Democratic State 
Convention recalls an incident which occurred on 
the night train from Springfield to Pittsburgh, on 
my return East. Many of the delegates who were 
going to attend the Democratic National Conven- 
tion to be held in Baltimore took the train in which 
I was. They were a noisy crowd, mostly occupying 
one car, and it was evident that they intended mak- 
ing a night of it. I had placed in charge of the 
porter of the sleeper, the box containing the por- 
trait, and he had locked it in a small room at the end 
of the car. I turned into my section and was soon 
asleep. Some time in the night, I was awakened by 
the loud talking of several men, and I heard one of 
them say to the porter : " We hear that there is in 
this car a picture of Abe Lincoln, and it's no use 
talking any more about it, we mean to have it 
trotted out." The porter said : " It is locked up 
and the gentleman has the key." "Well," said he, 
" where is the man who has the key ? " The porter 
had betrayed me, and the men came to my berth. 
I feigned sleep. One of them shook me, saying, 
" Here, mister — I say, wake up ! wake up ! There is 
a lot of us in the other car, and we want to see Old 
Abe's picture, and the man there," pointing to the 
porter, " says you've got the key, and you had bet- 
ter let us have it just as quick as you can, for we 
are bound to have some fun out of it to-nio-ht." 



602 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Said I, '' Neighbor, I am very tired and sleepy, and I 
wish you would go away. I have not got the key, 
and, if you will go away now, we will talk about see- 
ing the picture in the morning." With a parting 
word to the porter, which I did not catch the import 
of, they left the car. In the morning I saw nothing 
of the delegates to the Baltimore Convention, and 
the box was not opened till it reached my studio in 
New York. 

The portrait was finished ; and Mr. Lincoln had 
taken great interest in its progress and had ex- 
pressed himself as pleased with the result. He said, 
" It will give the people of the East a correct idea 
how I look at home, and, in fact, how I look in my 
office. I think the picture has a somewhat pleas- 
anter expression than I usually have, but that, per- 
haps, is not an objection." 

Mrs. Lincoln was to have come to the office to 
see the portrait, but on the day appointed it was 
very rainy, so I had it taken to the house. It was 
carried to the drawing-room, where I put it in a 
proper light to be seen, and placed a chair for Mrs. 
Lincoln. Sitting down before it, she said, " Yes, 
that is Mr. Lincoln. It is exactly like him, and his 
friends in New York will see him as he looks here 
at home. How I wish I could keep it, or have a 
copy of it." 

The residence of Mr. Lincoln in Springfield was a 



1 |ir If iiir r i^'ii r, mwi m 




A. LINCOLN. 
FROM AN ORIGINAL PAINTING BY THOMAS HICKS. 



BY THOMAS HICKS. ■ 603 

two-story wooden house, with an extension at the 
rear, and was painted in quiet, neutral tints. It 
stood in the angle of two streets in the suburbs of 
the town, with a yard on each side of it, with shade 
trees. There was an air of domesticity about it 
which suggested a peaceful and happy home. 

Mr. Lincoln had a large number of acquaintances 
with whom he was more or less intimate, men who 
respected him and whom he respected. But the one 
man, in those days, who was always with him, with 
whom he advised, in whom he confided, with whom 
he talked over the Constitution of the United States 
in its relations to slavery, the condition of the South, 
and the mutterings of the slave-owners, whose views 
accorded with his own, whom he held by the hand as 
a brother, was O. H. Browning, of Ouincy. The 
future President cracked his jokes and told inimit- 
able stories, by way of illustrating some question or 
argument, with a hundred men, during the week I 
was there, and always in his quaint way, with apt- 
ness and an abundant good-humor. But when he 
and Browning were alone together, they discussed 
with thoughtful consideration many events which 
might occur, among which were the threatening of 
an unnecessary civil war, the cruelties of which, for- 
tunately, could not be foreseen, in those peaceful 
days, by his friends and neighbors in the quiet town 
of Springfield. But Mr. Lincoln had intuitively be- 



604 REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

gun to face the future and to brace his nerves for 
the impending conflict. The subjects of these fre- 
quent conferences between the coming man and his 
friend, though vaguely outlined at the time, were 
not merely speculative, but they were prophetic ; 
and, from the day of Mr. Lincoln's inauguration to 
the day of his death, he saw these anticipations ful- 
filled in all the horrors of a fratricidal war. 

Seeing Mr. Lincoln under a variety of circum- 
stances and in the intimate relation of the sitter and 
the painter, I observed the leading traits of his char- 
acter. But when I saw him in Washineton, three 
years later, the elements which I had studied in our 
intercourse at Springfield, and others, newly devel- 
oped, were so broadened and sharpened by the 
great events of the time, both of success and disaster, 
that he seemed almost transfigured by the chano^e. 

Dining with Mr. Herndon toward the last days of 
my stay in Springfield and talking of our subject, I 
asked about his courage ; he answered me by saying, 
"Lincoln never had any personal fear, and he has 
the courage of a lion. In the old political struggles 
in this State, I have seen him go upon the platform, 
when a dozen revolvers were drawn on him, but be- 
fore he had spoken twenty words they would go 
back into the pockets of their owners; and such were 
the methods of his eloquence that, likely as not, 
these men would be the first to shake hands with him 



BY THOMAS HICKS. 



605 



when he came among them after the meeting. Lin- 
coln is a number one man in every way. But he was 
not my first choice for president. Theodore Parker 
was my first choice, and what a splendid president he 
would have made." 

The sittings for the portrait were concluded, and 
the likeness was approved by the family and the 
towns-people. While it was still on exhibition in Mr. 
Lincoln's ofiice, Mr. Browning placed in my hand the 
subjoined letter : 

j^-g/^-e^^-sj-tfi-^iil^^^^^-n- .<^t.-2,-^^' "TC^^--*-**, .*=>e-i-t<.^>i^ ^^^ 



/^C^ jC-'C-t'^^^'^.,'^ ■^i^^-^^ 



6o6 REiMlAISChNCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 








<X, 








When the portrait was ready for transportation, I 
went to say good-bye, and to thank Mr. Lincoln for 
his kindness in giving to me so much of his time. 
He said, " I have been interested in the painting, 
and I appreciate the desire of my Eastern friends 
to have my portrait, and I am glad that you were 
selected to make the likeness, as it gives great 
satisfaction." Thanking him for his kind words, I 
then said, " Mr. Lincoln, you are to be the next 
President of the United States, and the people will 
want a picture of your birthplace. If you will tell 
me where it is, we will not trouble you again about 
it," handing him. at the same time, a small memoran- 
dum-book. He took the little book, and, while hold- 
ing it in his hand, an expression came on his face, 
for half a moment, which I had not seen there be- 



BY THOMAS JIICKS. 



607 



fore. It was a puzzled, melancholy sort of shadow 
that had settled on his rugged features, and his eyes 
had an inexpressible sadness in them, with a far-away 
look, as if they were searching for something they 
had seen long, long years ago: then, as quickly as it 
came, that expression vanished, and, with a pencil he 
wrote afterward in the little book : 



MZEMORAITDA. 













—rrxf-A^^eyi^/a-^ 






rxH: 



:czzii.^.^ — 



'yU 



ijc^ 



So, no one knows his birthplace ; but countless 
thousands followed him toward his grave, and we 
all know where he lies buried. 



THOMAS HICKS. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 



General U. S. Grant. 

This famous soldier is one of the few great historical personages who 
lived in comparative obscurity until he was forty, a period Victor Hugo 
describes as the " old age of youth." Grant was born at Mount Pleas- 
ant, Ohio, April 23, 1822. He left West Point in 1843, and joined the 
Fourth Infantry as second lieutenant. He served under General Taylor 
on the Rio Grande, in 1846, and took part in the battles of Palo Alto. 
Resaca de la Palma, and Monterey. He served also under Scott before 
Vera Cruz, and participated in every engagement between that city and 
Mexico. He received honorable mention in dispatches, and promotion 
for gallant conduct at Molino del Rey and Chapultepec. He left the 
army in 1854 and settled in St. Louis. Not being successful there, even 
according to his modest ambition, he went to Galena, Illinois, and 
struggled against fortune in obscurity till the war broke out, when 
he offered his services to the government. The first success that 
brought him to the notice of his superiors was the capture of Belmont, 
Mo., and the next was the capture of Fort Doneison. The fall of this 
stronghold acted as a flash of light thrown across the path of the 
National Government in its darkest hour, and Grant was thanked by 
Congress and promoted to the rank of major-general of volunteers. 
After this came the capture of Vicksburg, a great military achievement, 
and all eyes were turned upon the rising and always successful general. 
His promotion was rapid and deserved. Victory followed victory, and 
grade followed grade, in regular order, until the obscure Galena tanner 
commanded a million men, and Appomattox crowned his combinations. 



6l2 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

The most brilliant ca^npaign of Grant was the series of strategic move- 
ments by which Johnston and Pemberton were defeated in detail behind 
Vicksburg, and the fortress was finally captured. But the act of con- 
ciliation toward the South, when he met her military representative in 
the person of Lee at Appomattox Court-House, is that which throws 
most luster on his character, and most endears his memory to civilization. 
He was elected President in 1868, and again in 1872. He made the 
tour of the world in 1877, and was received everywhere by the people 
with enthusiasm, as the representative of successful democracy, and by 
their rulers with marked distinction. In 1884 he contracted a painful 
and dangerous throat disease, and this, added to great financial dis- 
asters which overtook him a year later, broke him down completely. 
He died at Mount McGregor on the 23d July, 1885, and was mourned 
by the whole American people — North and South— as a man was never 
mourned before. His last days were dedicated to a sacred service, 
the compiling of his military memoirs with the purpose of securing a 
competency for his family after his death. It is satisfactory to know 
that his most sanguine wishes in that regard were realized. 



11. 

Elihu B. Washburne. 

Mr. WASHliURNE, of Illinois, is a native of Livermore (in Oxford 
trounty), Maine, and worked on a farm until sixteen years of age. He 
then passed two years in a printing office, to learn the art of printing 
and the newspaper business. The last year he spent in the office of 
the Kennebec Journal, the leading Whig organ in the State of Maine, 
then edited and published by the Hon. Luther Severance, subsequently 
a Member of Congress from the Kennebec District, and Commissioner to 
the Sandwich Islands. Mr. Washburne's health failing, he was obliged 
to abandon the newspaper business. He then prepared himself at 
the Maine Wesleyan Seminary for the study of the legal profession. 
On concluding his preliminary studies, he entered the law office of 
Hon. John Otis, of Hallowell, Maine, subsequently Member of Congress. 

After pursuing his studies in the office of Mr. Otis for two years, Mr. 
Washburne entered Harvard Law School, where he graduated in the 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 613 

spring of 1840, and was admitted to tine Massachusetts bar. In March, 
1840, he emigrated to the West, and located at Galena, Illinois, in April 
of that year. In 1844, he was elected a delegate to the National Whig 
Convention at Baltimore, which nominated Mr. Clay. In 1846, he was 
appointed by Governor Ford, of Illinois, prosecuting attorney for the 
Joe Davies County Court, which office he held for two years. In 1852, 
he was again sent to the National Whig Convention held at Baltimore, 
which nominated General Scott. In November of the same year he was 
elected to Congress, as a Whig, from the First Congressional District of 
Illinois. He was subsequently re-elected as a Republican for eight con- 
secutive terms. He resigned his seat after entering upon his ninth 
term, to become Secretary of State in the first Cabinet of General Grant. 
Mr. Washburne was in the House of Representatives during the whole 
time that Mr. Lincoln was President, and the most intimate and con- 
fidential relations always existed between them. General Grant ap- 
pointed him Minister to France. Presenting his letters of credence to 
the Emperor on the 23d of May, 1869, Minister Washburne continued 
to occupy his position until the fall of the Empire, September 4, 1870, 
and after that acted as Minister to the Provisional Government of the 
National Defense, and subsequently the French Republic. On the 
breaking out of the Franco-German war, at the request of the Gov- 
ernment of the North German Confederation, and with the consent of 
the French Government as well as his own, he took under his protec- 
tion, as American Minister, the subjects of the North German Confed- 
eration then residing in France. He was subsequently charged with 
the protection of the subjects of Saxony, Darmstadt, and Hesse Grand 
Duchy. He remained in Paris during the entire siege, and the days 
of the Commune, and during that time was charged with the protection 
of ten other nationalities whose representatives had fled from Paris. He 
was practically the German Minister in France for eleven months, and 
in constant official correspondence with the Prince de Bismarck. He 
received the warmest thanks from the German Emperor for the ser- 
vices he had rendered to his subjects, and after Mr. Washburne had 
retired, the old Kaiser presented him with a full-length portrait of 
himself in token of his appreciation of the services he had rendered. 

Soon after the election of Mr. Hayes, Mr. Washburne asked for his 
letters of recall, after a service of eight years and a half, a longer time 
than the position had ever been held by any American Minister. On 
his return to this country, in the fall of 1877, he took up his residence in 
Chicago, where he has since lived as a private citizen, taking no part 
in political affairs, but devoting himself to literary pursuits. 



6 14 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

III. 

George W. Julian. 

George W. Julian was born near Centreville, Wayne Co., Indiana, 
on the 5tli of May, 1817. His parents were pioneer settlers of the State, 
and his only educational opportunities were such common schools as a 
frontier settlement afiForded. By industry and perseverance he qualified 
himself for teaching, and followed the business over three years, after 
which he entered upon the study of the law, and was admitted to the 
bar in 1840. He began his political life a Whig, and in 1845 was 
chosen a representative to the State legislature. Through his Quaker 
training he became warmly interested in the slavery question, and in 
1848 severed his party relations, and was sent as a delegate to the 
famous Buffalo Convention of that year, giving his zealous support to 
Van Buren and Adams. In 1849, he was elected by the Free-soilers 
and Democrats of the Fourth Indiana District as a member of the 
Thirty-first Congress, in which he championed the homestead policy 
and signalized his hostility to the famous compromise measures. Owing 
to the reaction which followed the triumph of these measures, he was 
not returned to Congress in 1851, out in 1852 the Free-soil National 
Convention, which met in Pittsburg, nominated him for Vice-President 
on the ticket with John P. Hale. After the Whig Party disbanded, he 
vigorously opposed the Know-nothing movement which followed, and 
took a leading part in the formation of the Republican Party, being 
chosen a delegate to its first national convention, at Pittsburg, in 1856, 
of which he was a vice-president and chairman of the Committee on 
Organization. In i860, he was re-elected to Congress, and remained 
there till March, 1871, serving ten years on the Committee on Public 
Lands, and eight years as its chairman. He was also a member of the 
famous Committee on the Conduct of the War, of the Committee on Re- 
construction, of the committee which prepared articles of impeachment 
against Andrew Johnson, and of the National Committee appointed to 
convey the remains of President Lincoln to Illinois. Both in Congress 
and out, he has strenuously opposed the monopoly and plunder of the 
public domain. He pleaded for a vigorous prosecution of the war and 
the policy of striking at slavery as its cause, while he took the lead in 
advocating negro suffrage and the arming of the blacks. In 1868, 
he proposed a constitutional amendment forbidding the denial of 
the ballot to any citizen on account of race, color or sex. In 1872, 
he joined the Liberal Republican movement, and zealously supported 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 615 

Horace Greeley for President. While always maintaining an attitude 
of party independence, he has taken an active part in every presidential 
campaign since that date. He has not, however, sought any office, and 
his later years have been mainly devoted to literary work. A volume 
of his speeches was published in 1872, and in 1884 appeared his 
" Political Recollections." He is still occasionally heard from in the 
mag;azines. 



IV. 

Reuben E. Fenton. 



Mr. Fenton was born in Carroll, Chatauqua County, N. Y., on the 
iith of July, 1819. He was educated at Pleasant Hill and Fredonia 
academies, and studied law, but did not practice. The future governor 
of the Empire State evinced a decided taste for mercantile pursuits, and 
as decided a distaste for legal studies, and hence became a merchant, 
and a very successful one, while still comparatively a young man. He 
was a Whiy: in politics, drifted naturally into the Republican Party on 
its formation, and was looked upon as one of its ablest leaders in the 
State of New York. In 1857 he was elected to Congress, and was re- 
peatedly re-elected until 1864, when he became Governor of the State, 
running against Horatio Seymour. He was re-elected in 1866, defeat- 
ing John T. Hoffman, his Democratic opponent. At the expiration of 
his second term as governor, he was elected to the United States 
Senate, and at one time he was looked upon as a very probable candi- 
date for the Presidency. Governor Fenton was a practical speaker and 
politician, with a character remarkable for its masculine simplicity and 
executive capacity. He was among the warmest friends of President 
Lincoln, and was one of his strongest supporters, in and out of Congress, 
in bringing the war to a successful conclusion. Mr. Fenton died on 
the 22d of August, 1885. 



6l6 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

V. 

John P. Usher. 

John P. Usher was born in Brookfield, Madison County, New York, 
January 9, 1816. His descent is traced from the first settler of the name 
of Usher in America. His great-great-grandfather was John Usher, 
Lieutenant Governor of New Hampshire, under Governor Andros. Mr. 
J. P. Usiier, the subject of this sketcli, was admitted as an attorney in 
the Supreme Court of the State of New York, January 18, 1839; at the 
same time he was admitted as a solicitor in the Court of Chancery iii 
that State. He was admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of the 
United States in 1859. I" 1840 he removed to Terre Haute, Indiana, 
and practiced his profession until March, 1862, when he was appointed 
by Mr. Lincoln to be Assistant Secretary of the Interior. He was for a 
time Attorney-General of the State of Indiana, appointed by Governor 
Morton. Upon the resignation of Mr. Caleb B. Smith as Secretary of 
the Interior, President Lincoln appointed Mr. Usher to that office, 
which he held from Januarys, 1863, to May 15th, 1865, having, early 
in the month of March previous, given his resignation to Mr. Lincoln, 
to take effect on the 15th of May. Andrew Johnson was President dur- 
ing the last month of Mr. Usher's incumbency of the office. 



VI. 

George Sewall Boutwell. 

George Sewall Boutwell was born January 28, 1818, at Brookline, 
Mass., in the house upon the estate now known as Clyde Park, and 
occupied by the Country Club of Boston. His father, Sewall Boutwell, 
moved to Lanenburg, Mass., in the year 1820. 

The son remained upon his father's farm till December, 1830, when 
he obtained employment in a country store in the village where he 
worked till December, 1834. His education was obtained in the public 
schools of the town. After passing through all the vicissitudes incidental 
to the career of a young man bound to win fame and fortune in the world, 
after going from one rung of the ladder to another ever upward, after 
having been elected to the Massachusetts Legislature several years, and 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 6t7 

performing many honorable duties, he was elected Governor of Massa- 
chusetts for 1851-2, which brought him under the full glare of public 
light, with a national reputation. The degree of LL.D. was conferred 
upon him by Harvard University about this time, and he was appointed 
one of the trustees of that famous seat of learning a few years later. 

In 1855 Mr. Boutwell became Secretary of the Board of Education, and 
held the office till January i, 1861. In 1857 he was elected a member 
of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in 1861 he was 
chosen a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard Univer- 
sity, and delivered the annual oration. 

Mr. Boutwell was a delegate to the Convention that nominated Mr. 
Lincoln for the office of President. In January, 1861, he was appointed 
a member of the Peace Congress. In June, 1862, he was appointed by 
President Lincoln a member of a commission to adjust the claims 
against the government, arising from the operations of General Fremont 
in Missouri and the States in the vicinity. In July of the same year he 
was appointed Commissioner of Internal Revenue, and organized that 
office. He was elected to Congress in November of that year, and was 
re-elected in 1864, 1866 and 1868. Mr. Boutwell was a member of the 
Board of Managers that conducted the impeachment of Andrew John- 
son. He was also a member of the Committee of Fifteen that re- 
ported the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United 
States. He drafted and reported the Fifteenth Amendment, and 
conducted the debate in the House of Representatives upon the pas- 
sage of the resolution. When General Grant was organizing his Cabinet 
in February, 1869, he tendered the post of Secretary of the Interior to 
Mr. Boutwell. This invitation Mr. Boutwell declined, preferring to re- 
main in the House. Subsequently General Grant tendered him the office 
of Secretary of the Treasury. This position he declined also, but the 
President sent his name to the Senate notwithstanding his declination, 
and in March Mr. Boutwell resigned his seat in the House and entered 
upon the duties of Secretary of the Treasury. In the autumn of 1869 
he drafted the bill for funding the public debt, w-hich, upon his recom- 
mendation, in his annual report for that year, became a law in July, 1870. 
Mr. Boutwell resigned the office in March, 1873, having been elected 
to the Senate for the unexpired terna of Mr. Wilson. In 1877 President 
Hayes tendered him the appointment of Commissioner to revise the 
Statutes of the United States. The work was completed and published 
in 1878. In 1880 he received from President Hayes an appointment as 
counsel for the United States before the French and American Claims 
Commission. Upon the death of Secretary Folger, in 1884, President 
Arthur tendered the Treasury Department to Mr. Boutwell. This 
invitation was declined. 



6l8 BlOGKAPniCAL SKETCHES. 

VII. 

General Benjamin Franklin Butler, 

EX-GOVERNOR OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

This distinguished man— soldier, lawyer, statesman and orator— so 
remarkable for that success in life derived from consummate energy as 
well as ability, was born at Deerfield, N. H., on the 5th of November, 
1818. His paternal grandfather was an officer in the Revolutionary War. 
Like many of our greatest men, his path in early life was beset with 
difficulties and obstacles, only, however, to be overcome, until he re- 
ceived a college education, and in 1841 conimenced his career as a 
lawyer at Lowell, Mass. Here his legal ability lifted him into almost 
immediate eminence. He practiced at the bar for twenty years, chiefly 
in criminal cases, and during that time, from 1841 to 1861, was 
member of the Massachusetts Legislature, of the State Senate, and of 
the Constitutional Convention which assembled in 1853. He was a 
Democrat, and advocated the nomination of Breckinridge for President. 
As brigadier-general of the Massachusetts militia he marched with the 
Eighth Regiment to Annapolis at the outbreak of the war, brought out 
the frigate Constitution^ and was placed in command of the District of 
AnnapoHs, which included Baltimore. He was promoted to major- 
general of volunteers in May, 1861, and placed in command of Eastern 
Virginia, with head-quarters at Fortress Monroe. It was here that 
Butler used the phrase "contraband of war" in relation to slaves who 
came to the fort for protection — a phrase which anticipated the Proc- 
lamation of Emancipation, and has passed into history. General Butler 
was at the capture of Fort Hatteras and Fort Clark, N. C, which fell on 
the 29th of August. He organized an expedition against New Orleans, and 
in conjunction with Admiral Farragut, captured Fort Jackson and Fort 
St. Phillip, thus forcing the surrender of the city. Butler was then made 
military governor. His rule was drastic. He maintained order with 
an iron hand, subduing even disease and death by enforcing cleanliness 
and health. 

In the latter part of 1863, General Butler was in command of the 
Army of the James, and operated against Richmond. He intrenched 
himself at City Point and Berinuda Hundred, from which he assumed 
the offensive ; but having been attacked at Drury's Bluff on the i6th of 
May, 1864, and forced back on his base, he was obliged to act on the 
defensive during the rest of the campaign. He commanded the land 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCJIES. 619 

forces at the unsuccessful assault on Fort Fisher, in December, 1864. 
He was a member of Congress in 1868, and one of the managers in the 
impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson. General Butler was elected 
Governor of the Republican State of Massachusetts in 1883 on the 
Democratic ticket, to the astonishment of the whole country. He re- 
ceived the presidential nomination of the "People's Party" in 1884, and 
was at one time hopeful of making a formidable break in the ranks of 
the old political parties. With Senator Evarts, ex-Senator Conkling, and 
other famous lawyers, he has since been engaged in the celebrated 
Hoyt will case. General Butler may be truly described, to use a phrase 
of Dickens in its literal sense, as " one of the most remarkable men in 
the country." 



VIII. 

Charles Carleton Coffin. 

Mr. Coffin, war correspondent, author, and journalist, is descended 
from a Puritan family that settled in Massachusetts Bay in 1642. The 
homestead occupied by the original Coffins is still in possession of their 
descendants, after nearly two centuries and a half, and many and in- 
fluential are the men in the Old Bay State and elsewhere bearing the 
cognomen of Coffin, all descended from the Puritan family that left Eng- 
land on the eve of the struggle between Cromwell and Charles I. The 
author of this sketch is grandson of the Coffin w^ho fought in the Revolu- 
tionary War, whose wife was worthy to be the mother of heroes. He was 
born on the family homestead July 26, 1823, a year, by the way, that 
produced many of the great names that figured during the great rebell- 
ion in camp and Senate. Young Coffin was an omnivorous reader, 
and though the delicate state of his health prevented his education in 
college, he succeeded in collecting a fund of information that served 
him well in after-life. While undecided as to his future occupation, he, 
almost without knowing whither he was going, drifted into journalism, 
and became one of the most famous war correspondents evolved from 
the great rebellion. He saw, in his journalistic capacity, the beginning 
and the end ; he reported Bull Run, and four years later he witnessed the 
crowning victory at Five Forks, and flashed the news of that coup de 
gr&ce aUover the country. Mr. Coffin was one of the earliest war cor- 
respondents to describe the fall ol Charleston. 



620 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

After the war he went to Europe and traveled extensively as corre- 
spondent for the Boston Journal and other papers. He delivered an 
address on American Common Schools before the Social Science 
Congress at Belfast, which was applauded by the London Times; 
saw the Austrians evacuating Italy in 1859 ^ traveled through Greece, 
Asia Minor, India, China and Japan, and arrived home via San Fran- 
cisco, in 1869. Mr. Coffin is the author of Our New Way Round the 
World, and also of the Seat of Empire, Caleb Crinkle (a story), Boys of 
'76, Story of Liberty, Old Times in the Colonies, Buildini^ the Nation, 
Life of Garfield. He is now engaged on a history of the Civil War. 



IX. 

Frederick Douglass, 

ORATOR AND JOURNALIST. 

The most remarkable man ever born of the African race in this coun- 
try during the e.xistence of negro slavery — a man who owes none ot his 
great reputation to that spirit of philanthropic patronage which has 
done more than their own natural ability to render other men ot his 
race conspicuous for a time — is Frederick Douglass, who, as lecturer, 
agitator, editor and author, has been honored for his character and 
respected for his genius for nearly half a century. 

Frederick Douglass was born into the world and into slavery at 
Tuckahoe, near Easton, Maryland, of a white father and black mother. 
As he grew up he seemed to learn by intuition ; for, not only had he no 
teacher, but the rules of the plantation forbade a slave to learn even 
the rudiments of education. Away from the jealous eyes of the over- 
seer he taught himself to read and write. An old book, a scrap of 
newspaper, a patent-medicine almanac — everything that came in his 
way — he devoured with avidity, and, before he realized it himself, he 
possessed an education. Until the age of ten he lived on the plantation 
of his owner, Colonel Edward Lloyd. He was then removed to Balti- 
more, where he lived until he was twenty-one, when he fled from slav- 
ery. He went to New York, thence to New Bedford, Massachusetts, 
and in both places worked along the wharves for a living, and in vari- 
ous workshops, where his strong frame and deft hand rendered his serv- 
ices acceptable. He spoke at an antislavery meeting held at Nan- 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 62 I 

tucket in the summer of 1841, and his eloquence and ability attracting 
the notice of the abolitionists, he was soon appointed agent of the Anti- 
slavery Society of Massachusetts. He traveled and lectured through 
the North-eastern States, instructing himself meanwhile, and improving 
his oratory. He published an autobiography in 1845, which had a large 
circulation, and made a good impression. In the same year he went 
to Europe, and lectured in the cities and most of the large towns of 
Great Britain. He was formally manumitted in 1846, his English 
friends having subscribed $750 for the purpose. Returning to the 
United States in 1847, he went to Rochester and began the publication 
there of a journal called Frederick Douglass's Paper. At the com- 
mencement of his public career he was a Garrisonian Disunionist ; but 
later he took the ground of Sumner and others, that slavery w^as alto- 
gether illegal and unconstitutional. In 1855 he rewrote his biography 
under the title of ATy Bondage and my Freedom. He raised colored 
troops during the war, lectured and labored in the Union cause, and 
.was often consulted on political matters by President Lincoln, Secretary 
Stanton, and other Republican leaders. He edited the Washington 
New Era in 1870, and continued to do so until appointed United States 
Marshal of the District of Columbia. Since then he has written and 
lectured with honor and profit, and now, toward the close of a useful 
life, he enjoys a well-earned competence, and the esteem of his coun- 
trymen. 



X. 

Judge Lawrence Weldon. 

Judge Lawrence Weldon is one of the Judges of the United 
States Court of Claims, having been appointed to that position in No- 
vember, 1882, by President Arthur. He emigrated from Ohio upon his 
admission to the bar in the year 1854, and became acquainted with 
Mr. Lincoln, with whom he traveled the circuit until his nomination 
for the Presidency in i860. Judge Weldon took an active part in the 
campaign of 1858, and in i860 was one of the Presidential Electors 
on the Republican ticket. He was also elected to the legislature in 
i860, but resigned his office in April, 1861, to accept the appointment 
of United States Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois. In con- 
sequence of the war, that district became one of the most important in 
the United States, and many grave responsibilities were thrown upon 



62 2 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

Iiini as the representative of tlie government. He served during the 
administration of Mr. Lincohi, and was reappointed by President John- 
son in 1865. In November, 1866, he resigned his position as United 
States Attorney for the purpose of engaging in the general practice of 
his profession. In 1867 he removed from CHnton, 111., to Bloomington, 
where he continued to reside, engaged in an extensive practice, until 
his appointment in 1883 to the position he now holds. During his resi- 
dence in Illinois prior to 1861, he was on ihe niost intimate personal 
relations with Mr. Lincoln both at the bar and in politics ; and after 
that time until the death of the President he was an esteemed visitor 
at the White House. 

His personal relations to Mr. Lincoln both before and after his elec- 
tion as President were cordial and intimate, especially at that period 
of time when the country was in a transition state from the old Whig 
Party to the new Republican Party, which entitles his article as to 
matters of that period to peculiar interest and respect. 



XI. 

Benjamin Perley Poore. 

Benjamin Perlky Poore, printer, author, editor, correspondent, ra- 
conteur — a man who, in his life, has played many parts, and, as a rule, 
always played them well — was born in Newburyport, Essex County, 
Massachusetts, in the year of grace 1820, and was reared upon " Indian 
Hill Farm," which had been held in unbroken succession by his paternal 
ancestors since 1650, and where he now resides when " at home." 

At the age of seven he was taken to the District of Columbia (the 
birth-place of his mother), where much of his long and stirring life has 
been passed, engaged in public duties. During the year 1831 Mr. Poore 
accompanied his parents to Europe, and had the rare pleasure of meet- 
ing such representative men in literature and patriotism as Sir Walter 
Scott, Thomas Moore and General Lafayette. 

Upon his return from abroad he was placed at a military school, but 
he did not take kindly to " drill," either physical or mental, and ran 
away. Finding employment in a country printing office, he mastered 
the mystery of printing. When his father discovered him he persuaded 
him to study the law, and sent him to Paris to prepare himself for the 
New Orleans bar. He became the foreign cnrresjinmlent of the P>ostnn 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 623 

Atlas, and traveled over Europe, Asia Minor, and Lower Egypt, return- 
ing in 1847. Since then he has been the Washington correspondent ot 
a succession of Boston papers, and since 1862 he has been Clerk oi 
Printing Records of the Senate, editing the Congressional Directory , 
the Collection of Colonial and State Charters, the Catalogue 0/ Govern- 
tnent Publications from 1776 to 1882, and contributing to the leading 
magazines. 

His Massachusetts residence is a quaint reproduction of the rural 
homes of Southern England, each of its seven successive owners having 
made adchtions, the most interesting of which is a suite of rooms exhib- 
iting a tenement of the Continental period— hall, parlor, kitchen, bed- 
room, to which are added a weaving-room and printing-ofifice — all fur- 
nished in the style of '76, with the weapons, household utensils, clothing, 
china, mechanics' tools, etc., of the period. 

The collection of autographs at Indian Hill Farm numbers over fifteen 
thousand specimens. There is also a rare collection of war autographs, 
Major Poore having served in a Massachusetts regiment, and availed 
himself of every opportunity to add to his stock. Having attained the 
highest grade in Freemasonry, he has collected many interesting auto- 
graphs of the craftsmen, including an original poem by Brother Robert 
Burns. 

Major Poore has ever been an ardent lover of agriculture and a suc- 
cessful worker therein. He has given especial study to forestry and the 
intricate problems of culture and suitability of soil. A few years since 
his efforts were acknowledged by the giving of a premium of one thou- 
sand dollars for his accomplishment of the difficult task of covering a 
bleak New England hill with flourishing trees — an undertaking looked 
upon as quixotic — that had iiitherto baffled all skill and experience, and 
been voted an impossibility. 



XII. 

Titian J. Coffey. 

Titian J. Coffey, son of a leading physician of central Pennsylva- 
nia, was born in Huntingdon, in that State, December 5th, 1824, was 
admitted to the bar at St. Louis, Missouri, in 1845, '^"t returned to 
Pennsylvania, where he settled and practiced law with success until 



624 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

1 86 1. He was active in the movement which founded and organized 
the Republican Party in Pennsylvania, and was elected to the State 
Senate in 1856. He served for three years in that body, and among- 
other useful and important matters of legislation in which he had a lead- 
ing part, he procured the enactment ot the law establishing the normal 
school system of Pennsylvania, his report in favor of that measure being 
well known in connection with the literature of educational legislation. 
He was the first to introduce and advocate the now generally accepted 
reform in the laws of evidence which allows parties to suits at law to 
be examined as witnesses. 

For professional reasons he declined a re-election to the Senate. He 
engaged actively in the canvass which resulted in the election of Mr. 
Lincoln, in i860, to the Presidency, and, in March, 1861, was appointed 
Assistant Attorney-General of the United States. 

In this office, then very laborious because of the many important and 
difficult questions thrown upon the Attorney-General by the War of the 
Rebellion, and by the supervision imposed on that officer over the sub- 
ordinate law officers of the Government, Mr. Coffey rendered faithful 
and effective service. Many of the most important opinions of the At- 
torney-General given during those momentous times were written by 
him, and he had charge of the cases in the Supreme Court which in- 
volved not only large amounts of money, but many of the questions 
underlying the methods of effective prosecution of the war by blockade 
and capture at sea. He was the author of the opinion of the Attorney- 
General which declared the right of men of color to receive full pay as 
officers of the volunteer forces in the army. This was the first official 
utterance of the Government which, in the then existing legislation of 
Congress, placed negroes in the armed service of the United States on 
a higher footing than laborers and teamsters, and the opinion having 
been called for by the United States Senate, on the motion of Mr. Sum- 
ner, led the way to the subsequent legislation which placed all soldiers 
fighting under the national flag on a common footing. Finding the 
joint labors of the office and the court room too severe, Mr. Coffey re- 
signed his position in 1864, before the close of Mr. Lincoln's first term, 
and was placed by the Attorney-General in charge of the Government 
cases in the Supreme Court, in which service he continued for two 
years, when he returned to private practice in that court. When At- 
torney-General Bates resigned his office, after Mr. Lincoln's second elec- 
tion, he urged the choice of Mr. Coffey as his successor, in which he 
was sustained by many of the leading Republicans of Pennsylvania, but 
the President, recognizing the necessity of selecting a Cabinet member 
from the South, appointed Mr. James Speed of Kentucky. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKEICHES. 625 

In 1869, as Mr. Coffey was preparing to visit Europe for a lengthened 
residence, he was appointed by Gen. Grant Secretary of Legation at St. 
Petersburg. He accepted the position, but resigned it in 1870. He 
traveled extensively in Europe, and returned to the United States and 
resumed his professional work in the Supreme Court at Washington 
in 1873. 

He still resides in that city, having retired from active practice at the 
bar, and takes no part in politics beyond an occasional contribution to 
the press. 



XIII. 

Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. 

Henry Ward Beecher, the great pulpit orator and pastor of 
Plymouth Church, member of a family famous for their genius and their 
services rendered humanity, was born in Lichfield, Ct., June 24, 1813. 
He was educated at Amherst College, and studied theology under his 
father, the Rev. Lyman Beecher, a man who in his day was almost as 
well known and esteemed as his distinguished son is in ours. Henry 
Ward Beecher was settled in 1837 as a Presbyterian minister at Law- 
renceburg, Indiana, and ten years later became pastor of Plymouth 
Church, Brooklyn. Having for years taken a strong stand against 
slavery, he supported the government with all his force when, the war 
of the Rebellion broke out ; and in England, whither he went in 1863, 
exerted his eloquence in vindication of the policy of the North in pre- 
serving the Union. At the request of the government, Mr. Beecher de- 
livered an oration at Fort Sumter in 1865, on the anniversary of its fall, 
which is considered a masterpiece of eloquence. Mr. Beecher is not a 
politician in the common acceptance of the term, but when the occasion 
presents itself— that is to say, when great national interests are at stake, 
or great principles are involved — he throws himself with all his energy 
into the contest, in the advocacy of what he believes to be the right, and 
with voice and pen renders material service to the party of his choice 
for the time being. Thus in 1856 he took an active part in favor of the 
Republicans, and again in 1884 entered with zest into the struggle for 
the Presidency on the side of the Democrats, and was one of the most 
potent factors in the defeat of the Republican candidate. Besides oc- 
casional addresses, he is the author of Lectures to Young Men and 
the Plymouth Collection of Hymns. He is one of the founders of 
40 



626 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

the Indepettdent, a weekly religious paper of New York commanding- 
large influence. Among his other works which have obtained popularity 
are the Star Papers, two volumes ; fragments from his discourses 
entitled Life Thoughts; Notes from Plymouth Pulpit; Eyes and 
Ears; Freedom and War; Norwood, a Novel of New Englajid 
Life, and two volumes of sermons. It is generally conceded that 
Mr. Beecher ranks among the foremost pulpit orators of this or any 
age, and it is more than probable that when the animosities which have 
arisen from his political action shall have passed away the opinion will 
be universal. 



XIV. 

Hon. William Darragh Kelley. 

Hon. William Darragh Kelley, lawyer, politician and political 
economist, was born in Philadelphia on the 12th of April, 1814, and is 
grandson of Major John Kelley, a Revolutionary officer of distinction 
belonging to Salem County, N. J. Losing his father at an early age, he 
learned the business of jeweler, which he followed in Boston from 1835 
to 1839. Taking a keen interest in public affairs, and developing bright 
talents as a political writer and stump orator, Mr. Kelley allied himself 
to the Democratic Party while still a young man, and attained promi- 
nence in its councils. Though in the jewelry trade, he did not neglect 
his education, and never lost sight of the fact that he was intended for 
the bar, to which he was called in 1841. He practiced in his native 
city, was elected Attorney-General of Pennsylvania in 1845, ^^d was 
Judge of the Court of Common Pleas from 1 846 to 1 856. About this time 
his political opinions underwent a change, and, like many public men 
of the period, he joined the new Republican Party then in course of 
formation. In 1854 he delivered his great address on "Slavery in the 
Territories," which placed him prominently before the country and 
gained for him a national reputation. He was delegate to the National 
Republican Convention at Chicago in 1861, was returned to the House 
of Representatives in 1861, and has been in Congress ever since, without 
intermission. During the war he formed one of that body which never 
wavered and never lost hope in ultimate national triumph. He spoke 
well and frequently on the conduct of the war, and took a prominent 
part in the acrimonious debates on reconstruction at its close. It is, 
however, as a political economist and an authority on financial questions 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 62/ 

Mr. Kelley has chiefly distinguished himself, especially of late years. 
He is a prolific writer of pamphlets and magazine articles, all containing 
useful information. He is at present the senior member of the House 
of Representatives by continuous service. 



XV. 

Cassius Marcellus Clay. 

Cassius Marcellus Clay was born October 19, 1810, in Madison 
County, Kentucky. His father (see Ajnerican Cyclopccdia) was General 
Green Clay, and his mother Sally Lewis, of Anglo-Scotch ancestry. The 
family is related to the Clays of Virginia, and came from a common 
stock, being descended from Sir John Clay, of Wales, whose three sons 
came over with Sir Walter Raleigh. His grandmother Lewis was 
daughter of Edward Payn, honorably mentioned in the Life of Wash- 
ington. Mr. Clay received a complete education ; his mastery of the 
classics and languages was remarkable. He studied respectively in the 
primitive schools of Kentucky, St. Joseph's Catholic College (where he 
learned French from Father Fouche, a native of France), Transylvania 
University, Alabama University, and finally Yale College, whence he 
graduated, after having delivered the oration on Washington's birthday, 
in 1832. He married Mary Jane Warfield on returning home in 1833, 
and a year or two later plunged into the stormy sea of politics. His anti- 
slavery opinions were pronounced. He was a delegate at the Harris- 
burg Whig Convention, and supported Clay for the Presidency. He 
started the Free American newspaper in Lexington, which, during his 
illness, brought on by excitement, was removed by a mob to Cincin- 
nati. On his recovery, Clay continued the editing of his paper, which 
though published in Lexington was printed in Ohio. 

Clay took part in the Mexican War, as captain of a company of Ken- 
tucky volunteers, and at Saltillo, through disobedience of orders on the 
part of a subordinate, was captured by 3,000 Mexicans, after a vigorous 
defense by himself and his seventy men. On returning home after the 
war. Clay received a grand ovation and became very popular. He car- 
ried Kentucky for Zachary Taylor, and in 1850 was threatened with 
death at a public meeting because of his antislavery views, strongly 
expressed. Nothing but his record and popularity saved his life on 
that occasion. 



628 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

The same year he was assaulted by a band of conspirators led by 
Cyrus Turner, and was dangerously wounded ; Turner, however, was 
killed. Mr. Clay was defeated for governor of the State in 1851, joined 
the Free-soilers, opposed Know-nothingism, supported the candidature 
of Fremont in 1856 and Lincoln in i860. Refusing the Mission to Spain, 
he was sent to Russia in 1861, but recalled in 1862 through Seward's 
intrigues. He returned to St. Petersburg in 1863, and was given the 
Russian Mission again by President Grant. He supported Tilden in 
1876, and carried Mississippi for him by 35,000 majority, composed of 
whites and independent blacks. After this he retired from public life, 
but last year canvassed the North in favor of the Republicans as against 
a "solid South." 



XVI. 

Robert G. Ingersoll. 

This distinguished orator was born in Dresden, New York, in 1833. 
His parents removed to Illinois in 1845. He studied law, was called to 
the bar of that State, and, soon after, entered political life. He was 
nominated for Congress in i860, but was defeated. Entering the army 
in 1862, as colonel of a cavalry regiment, he was taken prisoner by the 
Confederates after a short service, and exchanged. He then returned 
to civil life and the practice of his profession. Giving his adherence to 
the Republican Party, he has since acted with it, and has always been one 
of the most illustrious of its champions. He was made Attorney-General 
of Illinois in 1868. Though for years recognized as an eloquent speaker, 
and as one of the most brilliant political orators of the West, it was not 
until 1876 that his reputation as an orator won national recognition. 
His speech nominating Mr. Blaine for the Presidency, at the Republican 
Convention of 1876, was a masterpiece of eloquence, and at once placed 
Mr. Ingersoll among the greatest orators of the age. For a few years 
past he has not taken an active part in politics, owing to the demands 
made on his time by his professional duties and the numerous calls for 
his services as a lecturer. On the platform he has no superior. He is 
an agnostic, and attacks the established creeds of Christendom with an 
unsparing sarcasm, yet with a charm of style and affluence of humor 
that win the unstinted eulogiums of his most earnest opponents. He 
has a lucrative practice in Washington and is engaged in most of the 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 629 

celebrated cases of the capital and at New York. Mr. IngersoU is a 
man of fine presence and gracious manners, and is the center ot a host 
of devoted personal friends. 



XVII. 

Absalom Hanks Markland. 

Absalom Hanks Markland was born at Winchester, Clark County, 
Kentucky, February 18, 1825. His family removed to Marysville, Ken- 
tucky, in 1828, where he was educated in the preparatory schools of 
that place until he entered the seminary of Rand & Richeson, then one 
of the most favorably known educational institutions in the valley of 
the Mississippi, Subsequently he was a student at Augusta College, 
Kentucky. 

In 1842 he became identified with the transportation interests on the 
Western lines, in which he continued until 1848, except the winter of 
1843, when he taught school at Manchester, Adams County, Ohio, In 
1848 he engaged in the wholesale mercantile business at Paducah, 
Kentucky. During the spare hours from 1842 to 1848 he read law and 
wrote for the press. In the fall of 1849 ^^ '^'^'^"'^ '^^ Washington City, 
and was employed there as a clerk in the Indian and Pension offices, at 
the same time continuing his relations with the Western press. He 
resigned from the Pension Office in July, 1852, and commenced the 
practice of law. In December, 1857, at the request of the Hon. Joshua 
H. Jewett, chairman, and every member of the committee on Invalid 
Pensions of the House of Representatives, he accepted the clerkship of 
that committee and served in that capacity during the 35th Congress. 

He was an advocate of the election of Abraham Lincoln to the 
Presidency, whose confidence he possessed after the inauguration of 
March 4, 1861, and by whom he was tendered offices of honor. He was 
appointed a special agent of the Post Office Department in 1861, and 
subsequently became the officer in charge of the mails for the Army of 
the Tennessee, then commanded by General Grant. As General 
Grant's commands were extended the army mail service was extended, 
until it finally all came under the charge of Col. Markland. He was com- 
missioned a colonel on the staff of General Grant in November, 1863.* 

* He was the only person besides President Abraham Lincoln and General U. S. Grant 
who ever had authority to pass at will through all the armies of the United States, thereby 
showing the confidential relations between the President, General Grant and himself. 



630 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

At the close of the war he was sent to California on a mission connected 
with the postal service, which was accomplished with satisfactory re- 
sults. He resigned from the public service in 1866 and became con- 
nected with the railroad interests of the South. He was appointed by- 
President Grant Third Assistant Postmaster-General. He entered upon 
the duties of Assistant Superintendent of Railway Mail Service in July, 
1869, and remained on that duty until October, 1874, since which time 
he has lived a retired life, by reason of a chronic ailment. 



XVIII. 

Hon. Schuyler Colfax, 

EX-VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Schuyler Colfax, born in New York City on March 23, 1823, was 
grandson of the General William Colfax of the Revolutionary War who 
commanded Washington's Life Guard. Schuyler Colfax received a 
common-school education necessary for the mercantile career intended 
for him, but, being a diligent student and extensive reader, especially of 
history and political economy, he trained himself for a higher sphere in 
life, and, after serving as clerk in a commercial house for three or four 
years, removed with his widowed mother to Indiana in 1838, and studied 
law. They were stirring times when he entered political life, and as the 
party leaders, always on the lookout for talented recruits, perceived in 
young Colfax oratorical abilities of a high order, he did not find it diffi- 
cult to obtain political preferment. He attached himself to the Whig 
Party, and in 1845 established the St. Joseph Valley Register, at 
South Bend, in the interest of the Whigs, and conducted that paper 
with rare ability until 1855. He was elected to the State Constitutional 
Convention in 1850, and, as a member of that body, opposed the clause 
prohibiting free colored men from settling in the State of Indiana. He 
was a candidate for Congress in 185 1, but was defeated. He was 
elected in 1853 by the newly formed Republican Party, and re-elected 
for the six following terms. He supported Fremont for President in 
1856, and in Congress made so powerful a speech on the Kansas ques- 
tion that it was deemed worth circulation in pamphlet form throughout 
the country to the number of half a million. He was made Speaker of 
the 38th Congress in December, 1863, was re-elected in 1865, and again 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 63 I 

in 1867. He was nominated for Vice-President of the United States by 
the Republican Convention in 1868, receiving 522 votes out of a total of 
650 on first ballot, and in March, 1869, was inaugurated with General 
Grant, and took his place as Speaker of the Senate. He stood for re- 
nomination in 1872, but was beaten by Henry Wilson of Massachusetts. 
Mr. Colfax was implicated in the charges of corruption brought against 
certain members of Congress, in 1873, in connection with the Credit 
Mobilier scandal, and was repeatedly examined before the Congres- 
sional Committee appointed to investigate the matter ; but the Judi- 
ciary Committee of the House of Representatives brought in a report on 
February 24, 1874, declaring that there was no ground for his impeach- 
ment. Mr. Colfax retired from public life soon after, and died in Feb- 
ruary, 1884. 



XIX. 

Daniel W. Voorhees. 

Daniel W. Voorhees, of Terre Haute, was born in Butler County, 
Ohio, on the 26th September, 1827, was graduated from the Indiana 
Ashbury University in 1849, studied law, and was admitted to the bar of 
Indiana in 1851, where he^soon acquired considerable practice. He took 
an active part in politics, and being a good speaker and organizer, soon 
obtained prominence as one of the leaders of the Indiana democracy. 
He was appointed United States District Attorney for Indiana in 1858, 
which office he held until elected to the Thirty-seventh Congress. He 
served in the Thirty-eighth and Thirty-ninth Congresses, but was defeated 
for the Fortieth by his Republican opponent. Again he contested the 
district for the Forty-first Congress and was successful. He served in the 
Forty-second, was defeated for the Forty-fifth, but soon after succeeded 
Oliver P. Morton, Republican, as United States senator. He was subse- 
quently elected to the Senate by the Legislature for the long term, and 
again in 1884, when he was mainly instrumental in carrying Indiana for 
the Democrats, thus securing his own seat in the Senate for another 
term. He has taken a prominent part in the debates in Congress dur- 
ing the past quarter of a century. 



632 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

XX. 

Hon. Charles Anderson Dana, 

EX-ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF WAR. 

Mr. Dana was born at Hillsdale, New Hampshire, on the 8th of 
August, 1819. He was sent to Harvard University at the age of seven- 
teen, but, owing to an affection of the eyes, was obliged to discontinue 
his studies. He was one of the members of the Brooke Farm Socialistic 
Community, established near Boston about forty years ago, and was on 
the editorial staff of the //ar din o-er, a socialistic journal started to advo- 
cate the views of Fourier. Mr. Dana joined the staff of the Tridiow uuder 
Horace Greeley in 1847, and was sent to France as correspondent of 
that journal at the outbreak of the revolution which drove Louis Philippe 
from the throne in 1848. Returning to New York, he became manag- 
ing editor of the Tribune, and so continued till the close of 1861, when 
the famous "On to Richmond " article, followed closely by the Bull Run 
disaster, led to a disagreement with Horace Greeley, and Dana resigned. 
He was soon after appointed Assistant Secretary of War, the duties of 
which office he conducted with great ability. During one of the gloomy 
periods of the war, when Grant was rising into fame and tisefulness, 
but was checked by red tape and misapprehension, Dana was sent to 
see that general and report upon him. He did so, the result being 
that Grant was retained in command, and increased confidence was 
placed in him. On the close of the war Mr. Dana was appointed 
editor of a new Republican paper, started in Chicago. It was not suc- 
cessful, however, and he returned to New York to be chosen chief editor 
of the Sun. This position he still holds, the Sun having become a 
brilliant and highly successful journal, possessing great influence through- 
out the country. Mr. Dana assailed General Grant very bitterly and 
persistently during his eight years' administration, though no one paid 
him a more generous tribute when the hero was laid in his grave. 
Besides his work as a journalist, Mr. Dana has edited a household book 
of poetry, and has been associated with George Ripley as one of the 
editors of Appleton's American Cyclopcniia. Mr. Dana is radical in 
his ideas, with a disposition to assist the weaker party in a struggle. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 633 

XXI. 

Hon. John A. Kasson, 

DIPLOMAT AND PUBLICIST. 

Mr. Kasson was born near Burlington, Vermont, on January 11, 
1822, and graduated from Vermont University in 1842. He studied 
law in Massachussetts, was called to the bar of that State, but soon 
after went to practice in St. Louis. He moved still farther West m 
1857, and settled in Iowa. He was a zealous Republican, and took an 
active part in promoting the interests of that party, and electing Mr. 
Lincoln to the Presidency in 1861. He was a warm personal friend ot 
Mr. Lincoln, who appointed him First Assistant Postmaster-General. 
He was elected to Congress in 1862, and remained there, by re-election, 
until his appointment as American Minister to Austria, a position 
from which he was recently recalled by President Cleveland. Mr. 
Kasson is a very able man. His speeches in Congress, during the war. 
were listened to with great interest, and read with attention all over 
the country. He was a member of the War Committee, and belonged 
to that advance of the Republican Party which advocated the abolition 
of slavery from the beginning, without compromise. He has been and 
still is a constant contributor to the North American Revieiv, and is 
remarkable for his industry and accuracy of statement. 



XXII. 

James Barnet Fry. 

Tames Burnet Fry was born in CarroUton, Illinois, February 22, 
1827 • entered the Military Academy July 1, 1843 ; was graduated and 
appointed Brevet Second Lieutenant Third Artillery July i. 1847- 

He joined General Scott's army in the City of Mexico in the autumn 
of 1847, and returned with it in the following summer. When his com- 
pany reached New York he was sent around Cape Horn to Oregon 
with the troops dispatched in November, 1848. to take military^ posses- 
sion of that region. Changes of station to Louisiana and thence to 
Texas occurred in 1851-52; in 1853 he was ordered to the Military 
Academy as assistant to Major (afterward the distinguished Major- 



634 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

General) George H. Thomas, then Instructor of Artillery ; and in 1854 
was appointed Adjutant of the Academy by the Superintendent, Colonel 
Robert E. Lee, who becarne the famous leader of the Confederate forces. 

When the clouds of civil war were gathering, General Fry, then First 
Lieutenant First Artillery, was commanding Magruder's battery, which 
he conducted from Fort Leavenworth to Washington in January, 1861, 
and commanded in the streets of the capital during the anxious day of 
President Lincoln's first inauguration. After the army began to crum- 
ble by secession. President Lincoln appointed Lieutenant Fry a captain 
in the Adjutant-General's Department ; and on the 28th of May, 1861, 
he was sent across the Potomac with General McDowell, and was chief 
of staff to McDowell's army during the Bull- Run campaign. In No- 
vember, 1861, he was sent to Kentucky as chief of staff to the Army of 
the Ohio under General Buell, and served in that capacity until Novem- 
ber, 1862. 

On the 17th of March, 1863, he was selected as Provost Marshal-Gen- 
eral of the LInited States under the act of March 3 of that year, for en- 
rolling and drafting the National forces, and held that office until it was 
abolished by law (August 30, 1866) in consequence of the close of the 
war. 

After the war General Fry resumed duty in his regular department, 
and served as adjutant-general of all the geographical divisions— one 
after another — into which the country is divided : the Division of the 
Pacific, under Major-General Halleck ; the Division of the South, under 
the same officer ; the Division of the Missouri, under Lieutenant-Gen- 
eral Sheridan ; and the Division of the Atlantic, under Major-General 
Hancock. ., 

He was breveted colonel for gallant and meritorious services in the 
battle of Bull Run ; brigadier-general for gallant and meritorious 
services in the battles of Shiloh and Perryville ; and major-general for 
faithful, meritorious and distinguished services in the Provost Marshal- 
General's Department during the war. 

On the ist of July, 1881, General Fry, having served continuously for 
thirty-four years, was, at his own request, placed upon the Retired List, 
and has since been in the quiet pursuit of military studies. He is the 
author of a Sketch of the AdJutcint-GetieraPs Department United 
States Anny from 1775 to 1875 (1875); of The History and Legal 
Effect of Brevets in the Arjnies of Great Britain and the United 
States (1877) ; of Artny Sacrifices, illustrating the services and experi- 
ences of the United States army on the Indian frontier (1879) ; of 
McDowell and Tyler in the Campaign of Bull Run (1884); of The 
Army under Buell and the Buell Commission (1884) ; and of New 
York and the Conscription of 1863 (1885). 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 635 

XXIII. 

Hugh McCulloch. 

Mr. McCulloch was born in Kennebunk, Maine, on the 7th of De- 
cember, 1808. His father was one of the large ship-owners of New Eng- 
land who were ruined, or nearly ruined, by the War of 1 812, and one of 
the first lessons which his son had to learn was, that for whatever head- 
way he made in the world, he must depend upon himself. His father was, 
however, able to pay the expenses of his preparatory education and of a 
little more than one year's study at Bowdoin College. Leaving college 
in his Sophomore year, he taught school for a couple of years, and, hav- 
ing earned in this way and saved a few hundred dollars, he commenced 
the study of law in his native town. He completed his course of legal 
study in Boston, and in April, 1833, anticipating Mr. Greeley's advice, 
he " went west." In June following he reached Fort Wayne, Indiana, 
which was described by him as then being a mere dot of civilization in 
the heart of a magnificent wilderness ; and here was his home until 
1863. In the autumn of 1835, he organized and became the cashier and 
manager of the Fort Wayne branch of the State Bank of Indiana. The 
next year he was elected a director of the bank, and he continued to be 
the cashier and manager of the branch and a director of the bank 
until the expiration of its charter in 1857. In 1855 3. new bank was 
chartered, and of this bank Mr. McCulloch was elected president. 
Both banks were among the best and solidest monetary institutions of 
this or any other country. 

In April, 1863, Mr. McCulloch was appointed Comptroller of the Cur- 
rency, by President Lincoln, at the request of Secretary Chase. It was 
an office which he could not accept without considerable pecuniary sac- 
rifice, but engaged as the government was in a terrible struggle for its 
existence, he did not feel at liberty to withhold from it such services as 
he might be able to render in a field with which he was familiar. 

In March, 1865, he was appointed Secretary of the Treasury. While 
Comptroller, his relations with Secretary Chase and his successor, Mr. 
Fessenden, were intimate. He understood the financial condition of the 
country', and was familiar with the routine of the department. He was 
therefore fairly equipped for the place, but the appointment was as un- 
expected by him as it was undesired. He held the oflfice until March 
4, i86g. From 1870 to 1880 he was engaged in banking and other 
business transactions either in London or New York. In the spring of 
1880, he retired to a farm in Maryland to find employment in restoring 



636 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

to fertility land which had been greatly impoverished by bad hus- 
bandry. In October, 1884, he again entered public life by resuming for 
a brief period, at the request of President Arthur, the offic-e of Secre- 
tary of the Treasury. 



XXIV. 

Chauncey M. Depew. 

Chauncey M. Depew was born at Peekskill, New York, in 1834. 
He comes of a Huguenot family, and on the maternal side is descended 
from a brother of the Roger Sherman of Revolutionary fame. Graduated 
from Yale College in 1856, he was admitted to the bar in 1859. Having 
been returned to the State Legislature from the Third Westchester Dis- 
trict in 1862, he was Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee and 
acting Speaker during part of that year. Mr. Depew displayed such 
administrative capacity, and spoke with such eloquence during his short 
term as Assemblyman, that in 1863 he was placed in nomination for 
Secretary of State, and was elected by the large majority of thirty thou- 
sand. He declined re-election, and was given the mission to Japan by 
Secretary Seward, a position, however, he resigned after holding it four 
weeks, in order to resume a lucrative business at the bar. It was soon 
after this he fell in the way of William H. Vanderbilt, who, always on 
the watch for great business ability, gave him the post of attorney for 
the New York & Harlem Railroad. From this starting-point on the 
"Vanderbilt System" his promotion was rapid. He was counsel- 
general of the United Central and Harlem road in 1875 I i" '^lay, 1882, 
upon the reorganization of the New York Central's management, second 
vice-president, and on the death of James H. Rutter in June, 1885, was 
elected president of one of the greatest corporations in the world. He 
has not been so uniformly successful in the political arena. In 1872 he 
rendered material aid to the Liberal Republican ticket at the head of 
which was Horace Greeley for President of the United States. Mr. 
Depew was defeated in his candidature for lieutenant-governor, but two 
years later, as he puts it himself, the legislature "forgave "him by elect- 
ing him Regent of the State University. In the unprecedented contest 
for senator in 1881 Mr. Depew for eighty-two days received three-fourths 
of the Republican vote, but retired from the struggle on condition that 
Warner Miller be elected. In the same spirit he made way for Senator 
Evarts last summer when morally certain of election. Mr. Depew is a 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 637 

man of versatile talents. Had he devoted himself to politics exclusively 
there is no office in the United States he might not legitimately aspire 
to. He is one of the foremost orators in the country, and as an after- 
dinner speaker is unrivaled. He charms a cultivated audience by his 
subtle humor, and a general audience by his flowing wit ; is, in fact, so 
flexible that he can readily and easily adapt himself to circumstances. 
And that he can give quantity as well as quality they know best who 
took part in the campaign of 1863, when he spoke twice a day for six 
weeks in various parts of the State. He has in him the esprit of his 
French ancestry and the force of the Revolutionary Shermans. 



David Ross Locke, 

HUMORIST AND JOURNALIST. 

The subject of this sketch — " Petroleum V. Nasby '' — is a satirist and 
humorist, known to fame wherever the English language is spoken and 
in many places where it is not ; for who has not heard of " Nasby," 
and who has not come in contact with that creation of his genius, the 
Cross-road Democrat, looking to Washington and political victory 
for a country post-office ? Mr. Locke was born in Broome County, 
N. Y., in December, 1823. He received a common-school education, 
like most of his contemporary humorists; for it seems that an early 
classical drill is not favorable to rich development in that depart- 
ment of literature of which Mr. Locke is so renowned a master. 
It appears, also, that the type-case is a more potent factor in the 
training of talent in our day than the best university. Mr. Locke 
learned the printing business in the office of the Cortlandt Democrat, 
but while still a young man obtained employment as local reporter 
in various Western cities. He was successively editor and publisher 
of the Plymouth Advertiser, Mansfield Herald, Bucyrus Journal, 
and Findlay Jeffersonian, all of the State of Ohio. It was in the 
Jeffersonian that he began the "Nasby Letters" in i860. They 
at once engaged public attention, and soon brought the writer a na- 
tional reputation. President Lincoln is reported to have said that, next 
to a dispatch announcing a Union victory, he read a Nasby letter with 
most pleasure. After many adventures in the journalistic field, Mr. 



638 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

Locke obtained the ownership of the Toledo Blade, which he still re- 
tains. He is a striking exception among literary men in that he com- 
bines great business capacity with literarj- talent and vivid imagination. 
While on a European tour, in 1881, he met his old friend, James Red- 
path, who interested him in Irish politics, a subject on which Mr. Locke 
delivered several lectures. He opened the columns of the Blade, also, 
to the advocacy of the Irish cause. Mr. Locke has been thoroughly 
successful as an editor, author, lecturer, and man of business. He pub- 
lished Nasby in 1865, Swingin' Rouiid the Cirkle in 1866, and 
Ekkoes from Kejitucky and others of his letters have since appeared. 
Although he discovered a gold mine in his head at a comparatively 
early age, he still works on, but chiefly at his paper, the Toledo Blade. 



XXVL 

Leonard Swett. 

Leonard Swett was born near the village of Turner, Oxford 
County, in the State of Maine, on the eleventh day of August, a.d. 
1825, on what was known as Swett's Hill. This hill has since been 
owned by the family; it slopes in all directions, and constitutes one of 
the most beautiful spots in New England. Here his father and mother 
lived during their lives, and here they died. His father was seventy 
years old and his mother was in her eighty-ninth year, at the date of 
their respective deaths. 

Mr. Swett, the subject of this sketch, was the second son and fourth 
child of his parents, and they conceived the idea, at an early date, of 
giving him a better education than the town afforded. Consequently, 
he was sent to select schools in the vicinity and completed his educa- 
tion at North Yarmouth Academy and Waterville College, now Colby 
University. He read law for two years with Messrs. Howard & Shep- 
ley. at Portland, Maine, and then started in the world to seek his 
fortune. At first, for nearly a year, he traveled in the South, when, 
with the spirit of adventure, he volunteered as a soldier in the Mexican 
War, and was under General Scott on the line of Vera Cruz and the 
City of Mexico. The war closed in May, 1848 ; then Mr. Swett re- 
turned and settled at Bloomington, in the State of Illinois. He com- 
menced the practice of his profession in the fall of 1849, and has given 
to that profession the labor of a life, being now in his sixty-first year. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 639 

At first, he was in indifferent health, on account of a disease, con- 
tracted in Mexico, which rendered it impracticable for him to sit in an 
office and do office work, and, therefore, he commenced to travel the 
circuit. The bar of that circuit — the eighth — at that time, embraced 
many men of marked ability, some of whom afterwards acquired a 
national reputation. David Davis, since distinguished as a Judge of the 
Supreme Court and a Senator of the United States, was the judge 
from 1849 until 1862. Abraham Lincoln, for two years a Member of 
Congress, and afterward known to the world as the martyred President 
and the emancipator of a race, was one of its lawyers. Edward D. 
Baker, a Member of Congress from the Sangamon district, also, after- 
ward from the Galena district, in the State of Illinois — also a distin- 
guished citizen of California, and a Senator of the United States from 
Oregon and who died leading his men at the battle of Ball's Bluff- 
was another of its lawyers. There were also Edward Hannagan and 
Daniel W. Voorhees, since Senators from Indiana, who attended the 
eastern part of the circuit, and Stephen T. Logan, John T. Stuart, U. F. 
Linder, Ward H. Lamon and Oliver L. Davis. The circuit commenced 
the first of September and ended about the first of January. The Spring 
circuit commenced about February and ended in June. In a life with 
these men and upon this circuit, Mr. Swett spent from 1849 *^° 1862. 

The lawyers would arrive at a county seat of from five hundred to two 
thousand inhabitants, and the clients and public would arrive from the 
country adjoining at about the same time. The lawyers would then be 
employed in such suits as would be pending in court, and the trials 
would immediately begin. After from three days to a week, spent in 
this manner, the court would adjourn and the cavalcade start for the 
adjoining county seat, where the same processes would be repeated. 
Twice a year fourteen counties were traversed in this way. In this 
manner, and under the hammering of these men, Mr. Swett received 
his earlier legal education. 

David Davis, in a speech at Springfield, recently made, said, in sub- 
stance, that this time constituted the bright spot of his life. In this ex- 
pression he would be joined by every man uamed, most of whom now 
live " beyond the river." 

In 1865, Mr. Swett moved to Chicago, where he has since acquired 
a prominent and leading position as a lawyer in Chicago and the North- 
west. During his life in the country, in Illinois, pending the agitation 
of the slavery question, and before the war, he took an active part in 
politics, having canvassed nearly the whole State in the years 1852, 
1854, 1856, 1858 and i860. He, however, never held but one office, 
which was that of Member of the Legislature in 1858-9, and this was 
at the special request of Lincoln himself, and to save him the vote of 



640 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

McLean County, in his contest with Mr. Douglas lor the Senatorship. 
That county, at the previous election, had been carried by four votes. 
Lincoln thought Swett could carry it again, and asked him to run. He 
did so, and was elected by nearly five hundred majority. Since his 
removal to Chicago, he has devoted himself exclusively to his profession 
and has absolutely ignored politics. 

Mr. Swett has been distinguished as a successful trier of causes. In 
fact he has done little else during his professional life. In Chicago, the 
most important cases have been intrusted to him, and it is a rare thing 
that he loses one of them. The reason of this is that he attends to 
the details of the preparation- personally, himself seeing and talking with 
his witnesses, so that when the cause is heard in court, the various ele- 
ments fit together "without noise of a.xe or hammer." 



xxvn. 
Walt Whitman. 

Walt Whitman was born at West Hills, Huntington, Suffolk 
County, State of New York, May 31, 1819 ; father, a farmer and carpen- 
ter; mother's maiden name. Van Velsor, of Dutch stock. Was brought 
up in Brooklyn and New York cities, and went to the public schools ; 
as a young man worked at type-setting and writing in printing-offices. 
Has traveled and lived in all parts of the United States, from Canada to 
Texas inclusive. Began his book of poems, Leaves of Grass, in 1855 
and completed it in 1881, when, after six or seven stages, the final edi- 
tion was issued. Walt Whitman is also author of a prose book, 
Specimen Days and Collect, published in 1883. During 1863. '64, 
and '65, he was actively occupied in the army hospitals and on the 
battle-fields of the Secession war, as care-taker for the worst cases of 
wounded and sick of both armies. After the close of the war, had a 
severe paralytic stroke, from which he has never since entirely recov- 
ered. Lives (1886) in partial seclusion at Camden, New Jersey. Calls 
himself "a half-paralytic." Still writes and lectures occasionally. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 64 1 

XXVIII. 

DONN PlATT. 

DONN Piatt, journalist, is of French extraction, as his cognomen 
indicates, and Huguenot blood. The name has been somewhat noted 
wherever known. The grandfather served with distinction in the Revo- 
lution, coming out decorated with a wound, and honored by a service, 
at one lime, on the stafT of General Washington. The son, John H. 
Piatt, put a large fortune, made through enterprise at Cincinnati, to the 
service of the government, in its distress during the war of '12, and 
died bankrupt and broken-hearted in consequence. Sixty years alter, 
the Supreme Court of the United States recognized his devotion by 
adjudicating the claim in favor of the heirs. Donn Piatt at the age of 
twenty-five was commissioned a Judge of the Court of Common Pleas at 
Cincinnati. Shortly after he was appointed Secretary of Legation at 
Paris, and served as Charge cV Affairs for nearly a year, during the sad 
incapacity of the minister from a sickness that ended in death. Enter- 
ing the service of the government during the late civil war, he took part 
in the battles of the first and second Bull Run, that of Cross Keys, and 
Bull Pasture Mountain. After, assigned to duty on courts martial, he 
wrote the noted finding of the military tribunal that censured McClellan 
for not retaining Harper's Ferry, and then served as judge-advocate 
of the court convened to investigate General Buell's operations in Ten- 
nessee. At the end of the war he became journalist, and made the 
Washington Capital a success. The deaths of his father and father- 
in-law putting him in possession of a fortune, he retired to a farm in the 
Mac-o-Chuk Valley, where he lives, he says, " a practical farmer." 
which means, he assures us, " to lose more to the acre than any man, 
of like pursuit, in Ohio." 



XXIX. 

E. W. Andrews, A.M. 

E. W. Andrews, A.M., is the son of Rev. William Andrews, and 
was born in Windham, Connecticut, in 1812. He spent three of the 
earlier years of his life in learning carriage-painting in the celebrated 
41 



642 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

carriage manufactory of James Brewster, in New Haven, and, while 
there, he, with six other apprentices, formed " The Mechanics' Associa- 
tion," which has since grown into one of the most valuable institutions 
of that beautiful and prosperous city. While yet an apprentice, Mr. 
Andrews nearly fitted himself for college, and subsequently pursued his 
studies at Schenectady, New Haven and at the law school of Judge 
Gould at Litchfield ; and, in 1834, was admitted to the bar of Connecti- 
cut, and practised law for some years in that State in partnership with 
the late Hon. Truman Smith. In 1837, he entered the ministry of the 
Congregational Church, and was, soon after, settled as pastor of the 
Congregational Church in West Hartford, Connecticut. In 1840, he was 
offered the pastorate of the Broadway Tabernacle Congregational Church 
in the city of New York. This church had just been organized and was 
the first of this order established in that city ; but, although small in its 
beginning and weak in its resources — and, at first, without the sympathy 
and support of those churches of the city which, it was supposed, would 
naturally affiliate with it — yet during the four or five years of Mr. An- 
drews' pastorate it grew rapidly, the congregation became the largest 
in the city, and foundations were laid on which has arisen one of the 
most substantial, influential and useful churches of New York. In 
1845, Mr. Andrews was settled as pastor of the Second Street Presby- 
terian Church at Troy, where he remained several years. In 1853, he 
was appointed, by President Fillmore, on the Board of Visitors at West 
Point, and, by appointment of the Board, prepared its report to Con- 
gress. In the fall of that year, on motion of Henry E. Davies, secondefl 
by Daniel Lord, Mr. Andrews was admitted as a member of the bar 
of the State of New York, and practised law in the State until the 
spring of 1862. At this time, a commission was offered him, by Gov- 
ernor Morgan, to aid in raising a regiment of infantry, for the war, in 
the Congressional district embracing the counties of Westchester, Rock- 
land, and Putnam. Under this commission, Mr. Andrews addressed 
numerous mass-meetings held in these counties to secure enlistments, 
and when the regiment was raised went with it to the seat of w^ar as 
captain of one of its companies, and continued with it until January, 
1863, when he accepted an invitation from General W. W. Morris, 
U. S. A., then commanding the defenses of Baltimore, to become his chief 
of staff and assistant adjutant-general. Shortly after, Mr. Andrews 
was transferred to the Adjutant-General's Department of the Army, 
and mustered out of the volunteer service. In this position he remained 
for two years, and until he left the service near the close of the war. 
Mr. Andrews had three sons, a son-in-law, and a brother in the army-- 
his brother commanding for a time the Thirty-sixth Ohio Volunteers. 
Shortly after the close of the war, he accepted the position of counsel 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 643 

for the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, in the State of West Virginia, and 
has since devoted himself chiefly to the practice of the law. He is now 
a resident of New York. 



XXX. 

James C. Welling. 

James C. Welling was born in Trenton, N. J., on the 14th of July, 
1825. After graduation at Princeton College, in 1844, he studied law, 
but renounced its practice to become Associate Principal of the New 
York Collegiate School in 1848. In 185 1, he became literary editor of the 
National Intelligencer !ii Washington, D. C, and, a few years later, suc- 
ceeded to Joseph Gales in the political conduct of that old and influential 
journal. During the Civil War his relations with the members of Presi- 
dent Lincoln's Cabinet were intimate and often confidential. Before, 
during, and after the war, Mr. Welling stood steadfastly by the Consti- 
tution and the Union, without, however, always approving the civil poli- 
cies of the Administration. He resigned his editorial position in 1865, be- 
cause of broken health. For several years he was one of the clerks of the 
United States Court of Claims. In 1870 he was appointed Professor of 
Belles Lettres in Princeton College, and, a year afterward, was called to 
the presidency of the Columbian University— an office which he still 
holds. During his administration of that institution it has received a 
new charter from Congress, has erected a new University building in the 
heart of Washington, and has enlarged the scope of its operations by 
adding a scientific school to the other schools already comprised in its 
system. By joint resolution of Congress in 1884, he was appointed a 
Regent of the Smithsonian Institution, and is Chairman of its Executive 
Committee. He is also the President of the Board of Trustees of the 
Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, and takes a deep interest in the 
prosperity of that institution— the most richly endowed institution of its 
kind in the country. 



644 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

XXXI. 

John Conness. 

John Conness was born in Ireland in 182 1. He was the youngest 
son of Walter Conness, a man distinguished among his neighbors for 
high character, great wisdom and intellectual accomplishments. Com- 
ing to New York City, he was fortunate enough to have as a teacher 
Hon. William A. Walker, subsequently a member of Congress, and 
connected later with the Board of Education of that city. 

In the high example set to his pupils, his power to impress, and the 
never-ceasing force applied in his profession, Mr. Walker might be said 
to have been peerless ; and his pupils, among whom were John A. Stew- 
art, Abrani Hewitt and Edward Cooper, are examples of his conscien- 
tious faithfulness. 

In 1849. Mr. Conness went with the first American emigrants, after 
the discovery of gold, to California. There, he engaged in mining and 
other pursuits, but when the attempt was made by Southern men to 
change the free institutions of the young State, and to dominate opinion 
by strategy and force, Conness joined his efforts to those of Broderick 
in favor of freedom on the Pacific coast. 

This, and not personal ambition, brought him to the center of political 
action, where he was an important factor up to the period of the Civil 
War. 

In 1856, Broderick was elected to the United States Senate, but, in 
1859, f*^^' *" a duel, having served two years of his term. Milton S. 
Latham succeeded Broderick, or served out the four years remaining of 
his term. 

Latham's course in the Senate, and his support of Breckinridge and 
opposition to Douglas offended the loyal sentiment of California. 

The supporters of Douglas and Broderick, there, united with the Re- 
publicans, and, meeting in convention together, they resolved to act, 
during the war, as supporters of the administration of Lincoln and of the 
Union. The result of this union of parties was the election of John 
Conness to the Senate of the United States in 1863, thus succeeding to 
Broderick's term and serving until 1869. 

In the Senate Mr. Conness charged himself, first, with a support of all 
measures necessary to maintain the national power; and, thereafter, with 
the changes needed in the fundamental and statute law to maintain the 
new order of things resulting from the triumph of the national cause. 

Next, he gave persistent attention to legislation for the benefit of his 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 645 

State, which had been neglected through the period of bitter controversy 
since the admission of California into the Union. 

Immediately after leaving the Senate, in 1869, he married a lady of 
Massachusetts. It was their firm intention to have lived in California, 
but, through a series of events which occurred, it seemed to be impossi- 
ble, and their home is made in the suburbs of Boston. 



XXXII. 

John B. Alley. 

John B. Alley was born in Lynn, Mass., January 7, 1817, of 
Quaker parents. He went to school until twelve years of age, when he 
left. 

When fourteen, he learned the trade of a shoemaker ; at sixteen, he was 
a newspaper correspondent. He was a great student and lover ot 
history. At eighteen, he delivered an historical lecture which was much 
praised. 

When nineteen, he went to Cincinnati, purchased a boat, stccked it 
with goods, hired a crew and floated down to New Orleans, upon a 
trading expedition. His adventure was pecuniarily very successful. 
When twenty-one, he established a large manufacturing business, and, a 
little later, he added an importing branch ; and became, in a few years, 
the most successful manufacturer and merchant that his native town has 
ever produced. Very early in life he took a very active interest in the 
anti-slavery cause, and was published in several cities of the South as 
an obnoxious abolitionist that Southern merchants ought to shun. 

When a very young man, he was elected, by the Legislature of Massa- 
chusetts, a member of the Governor's Council— the youngest member in 
it. The following year he was elected to a seat in the Senate of Massa- 
chusetts and was appointed chairman of the Joint Committee on Rail- 
roads, at that time the most important committee of the Legislature. 

When he retired from the Senate, he was nominated, then a very 
young man, for a seat in Congress, and received a large vote, but was 
not elected until several years after. 

In 1858, he was elected to Congress, and continued to be nominated 
unanimously in '60, '62 and '64, thus serving as a member of Congress 
for eight years. In that body he served on several important com- 
mittees, and was chairman for four years of the Committee on Post Offices 



646 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

and Post Roads, from which committee he reported several very important 
bills in the interest of tiie country. We believe that no bill he ever reported 
and no measure he ever advocated, during his long term of service, failed 
to receive the approbation of the House. 

He was a persuasive and effective speaker. At the expiration of his 
fourth term he voluntarily retired to private life, and has not since been 
a candidate for public office or been in public life, although offeretl some 
important positions, which he declined. 

He was a member and chairman of the Republican State Committee 
for several years. For the last forty years he has been actively and suc- 
cessfully engaged, as he is now, in the hide and leather business in 
Boston, as the head of the house of John B. Alley & Co. He has been 
for many years engaged in large railroad operations in the West, and, it 
is said, has been remarkably successful. INIr. Alley was very intimate 
with Mr. Lincoln during the whole of his Presidency, and also num- 
bered among his cherished and close friends, Charles Sumner and Chief 
Justice Chase ; and the ties of personal friendship, notwithstanding politi- 
cal differences, continued until severed by death. 



XXXIII. 

Thomas Hicks 



Mr Hicks is a native of Newtown, Bucks County, Penn., and com- 
menced his studies in the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, in 
Philadelphia. Afterward he was a pupil of the National Academy of De- 
sign of New York and was elected Academician in 1851. He went to 
Europe in 1845. After making some studies in the National Gallery in 
London, he went to Paris, where he visited ail the great galleries for 
which it is so renowned. After remaining in Paris for about a month, 
he started, with a companion, on a toitr a pied through Switzerland. 
Reaching Basle by diligence, the walk commenced, and the first day 
brought him to Zurich ; thence he went to the Rigi and Luzern, over 
the St Gothard, through the valley of Tessin to Bellinzona, thence 
to Lake Como and to Milan. From Milan lie proceeded to Flor- 
ence by diligence, where he made the acquaintance of Hiram Powers 
and Horatio Greenough. After visiting the galleries and the great 
sculptures by Michael Angelo, Ghiberti, Benvenuto Cellini, and others, 
tor which ihat city is famous, he proceeded to Rome, where there was 
already a colony of American artists which included J. E. Freeman, 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 647 

Luther Terry, George A. Baker, Thomas Crawford and H. K. Brown. 
Among the distinguished Americans settled there for ihe winter were 
Margaret Fuller, Marcus Spring, W. W. Story, George W. Curtis and 
others. In Rome, Mr. Hicks became a pupil of Ferero, the distin- 
guished teacher and draughtsman. 

In the summer of 1847, Mr. Hicks passed a rnonth at Venice with 
Mr. G. W. Curtis, his brother, Burrill, and John F. Kensett. On leaving 
Venice, he parted with his companions at Ferrara, they going north, 
and he returned to Rome, where he remained until the following spring, 
when he went to Paris, and entered the studio of Thomas Couture. 
After the insurrection, which ended in June, he went to Barbizon for a 
month, and saw there the French artists Rousseau, Diaz, Corot, Millet, 
who were all living there at that time, and many others, none of whom 
were famous then, but who in recent times have become so. In the 
fall of 1849, ^^^- Hicks returned to New York and began his successful 
career as a portrait painter. Mr. Hicks went to Europe in 1875 and 
visited England, France, Italy, and Switzerland. In the winter of 1876 
he painted a portrait of General Meade in the accoutrements worn at 
the battle of Gettysburg, now owned by General Meade's family. This 
portrait, that of Dr. Delafield, owned by the New York Academy of 
Medicine, and one of Dr. John F. Gray, were exhibited in the Centennial 
Exhibition of 1876, for which the medal and diploma were awarded. 
Mr. Hicks was president of the Artists' Fund Society of New York for 
many years, from which office he retired in 1885. 

Mr. Hicks has had two narrow escapes from death ; at a Roman 
Carnival by a stiletto wound from the hand of an unknown assassin, and. 
later, in the railroad disaster at Norwalk, Conn. 

In April, i860, Mr. Hicks, having some business in Washington, the 
Republican Committee of this city gave him a letter to Mr. Seward, who 
was a Senator then, requesting him to sit to Mr. Hicks for a portrait. 
The sittings were very pleasant. It was the first profile portrait painted 
of him, and is now owned by the Union League Club. This portrait 
was copied on a silk banner, and was taken to Chicago to be unfurled 
when Mr. Seward should have been nominated by acclamation. But 
Mr. Lincoln was nominated, and Mr. Hicks has told us about the por- 
trait he painted of him, and of the occurrences of the time. 



INDEX. 



Abuse by newspapers, 58, 478, 5S9. 
Ability. {Str Cliaracteiistics.) 
Abolitionist. {Sft- Negro and Slavery.) 
Adams, Dispatch to, liv., Ix., Ixx., 127, 

579- 
" Fac-simile, Ixx. 
Alley, J. B., Biography, 645. 

" " " Reminiscences, 573. 
Andrews, E. W., Biography, 641. 

" " " Reminiscences, 501. 
Andrews, J. A., 167, 257. 

R. F., 69. 
Anecdotes and Apposite Sayings. 
Big Crop of Fight, 432. 
Blacksmith and Iron, 3. 
Cure for Boils, 509. 
Darkey Arithmetic, 288. 
Farmer and Skunks, 236. 
Going to a Hanging, 403. 
Make a Fizzle Anyhow, 3. 
Monkey and His Tail, 2, 194. 
Mormon Title, 211. 
Nothing but Money, 239. 
Sicker Man, A, 240. 
Plowed Round Him, 400. 
Pretentious Shirt, 294. 
Prize Hog, xxvi. 
Pyramid, 443. 

Kevetions h A^os Moutons, 211. 
Shadrach, Meshach and Abed- 

nego, 237. 
Something to give Office Seek 

ers, 337. 
Squealing Boy, 401. 
Temperance Irishman, 97. 
On Vanity, 442. 
Anecdotes, Whence Derived, 54. 
" Solace to Care, 54. 

" of Robert Lewis, 211. 

Anger. {See Characteristics.) 
Antietam, Battle of, 99, 273. 
Antislavery Ideas in Illinois, 409. 



Applications for Army Offices, 390. 

for Office. (5^^ Offtce- 
Seekers.) 
" for Autographs, 229. 

Appointments to Office, 363, 578. 
Arming the Negroes, 332. 
{See also Negroes.) 
Army Losses, 287. 
Army Mails, 328. 
Arnold, J. N., 15. 
Ashman, George, 167, 257. 
Aspect of Lincoln. 

When Story Telling, 54. 
In Court Room, 48. 
In Early Life, 16. 
Change of, 99. 

In general, 16, 48, 54, 96, 99, 
123, 172, 186, 213. 230, 249, 
258, 285, 294, 337, 341, 3S8, 
412, 414, 441, 469. 479:' 4S7. 
491. 499, 515. 
After death, 452. 
Asperity of Manner, 282. 
Assassination, The, 44, 384, 404. 
Athlete, 463. 
Attorney. {See Lawyer.) 
Authorship, Skill at, 414. 



B 



Baker, E. D.. 8, 9, 15, SL 299- 
" " Death of, 173. 
" Senator, Charges Against. 51. 
Barlow, S. L. M., xxxiii. 
Bates, Atty. -General, 240, 244. 
Battle of Ball's Bluff, I73- 
Beecher, H. W., Biography, 625. 
" " " Portrait, 247. 

" " " Reminiscences, 247 

" << " Visit to Washing- 

ton, 248. 
" " " Visit to England, 

249. 



650 



INDEX. 



Birney, W., 495. 
Birthplace of Lincoln, 606. 
Bissell, W. H., 8. 
Bixby, Mrs., Letter to, iii. 
Black Hawk War, 6, 220, 463. 
Blaine, J. G., Corrected, 39. 
Blair, F. P., 257. 
" F. P., jr., 260. 
" M., 328. 
Blanchard, J., 17, 222. 
Boarders at Mrs. Sprigg's, 17. 
BOUTWELL, G. S., Biography, 616. 
" " " Portrait, loi. 

" " " Reminiscences, loi. 

Breckenridge, R. G., 297. 
Brownlow, Parson, 597. 
Browning, O. H., 15, 605. 

O. S., 293. 
Buckingham, Gov., Visit of, 190. 
Bullitt, 351. 

Burlingame, Anson, loi. 
Burnside as Housekeeper, 278. 
Butler, B. F., Biography, 618. 
" " " Portrait, 139. 

" " " Reminiscences, 139. 

" '< " First Meeting with 

Lincoln, 139. 
" " " Lincoln's Visit to, 146. 

" " " Commissioned as Ma- 

jor-General, 139. 
" " " Examined inEngineer- 

ing, 147. 
" " " Ship Island Expedi- 

tion, 142. 
" " " Offered the Vice-Presi- 

dency, 587. 
Buttcrlicld, 431. 



Cabinet, liii., 345, 369. 

California, Delegation from, 50. 

Cameron, S., Appointment of, 48. 

Campbell, T. , 14, 15. 

Candidate for Renomination, 560. 

Capital. {See Labor.) 

Capitol Prison, Inmates of, 389. 

Captain of Volunteers, 6, 463. 

Cartter, D. K., 167, 257. 

Carroll, T. B., 363. 

Cass, Gen., 220. 

Censorship of the Press, 298. 

Character, xxiv. , 493. 

Characteristics. 

Ability, 245, 327. 

Anger, 51, 494. 



Characteristics. 
Asperity, 282. 
Caution, 57. 
Charity, 61. 

Clemency. {See Pardoning Power). 
Control over Men, 127. 
Courage, 58, 119, 123, 144, 146, 

604. 
Dignity, 347. 
Despondency, xxx. 
Fairness, 333. 
Fidehty, 586. 
Firmness, 583. 
Frugality, 587. 
Geniality, 59. 
Honesty, 445. 
Humor, 193, 432, 443, 574- 
Kindness, 11 r, 242, 244, 341, 584. 
Knowledge of Men, 260. 
Mercifulness, 144, 188, 377, 
Modesty, 241, 444. 
Patience, 282, 336, 589. 
Sagacity, 577, 582. 
Simplicity, 576. 
Self-reliance, 209. 
Temperance, 78, 170, 198, 463. 
Tenderness, 296, 451, 486. 
In General, xxx.. Hi., 6, 14, 15, 48, 

50, 5i> 57, 58. 59. 6i, 111,119. 
123, 144, 146, 167, 188, 193, 
220, 227, 241, 242, 244, 245, 
257, 260, 282, 298, 327, 333, 

336, 341, 347, 363, 369, 377, 
432, 443, 444, 445, 463, 493, 
494, 560, 576, 577, 582, 584, 
589, 604. 
Chase, S. P., Hi., 298, 559, 5S0. 

" " " Candidature for Presi- 
dency, 559. 
" " " Appointed Ch. Justice, 
565, 581. 
Chicago Clergymen, 125, 334, 527. 
Chouteau, C. P., 5. 
Cisco, J. J., 563. 
City Point, 175, 178. 
Clay, C. M., Biography, 627. 
" " " Portrait, 293. 
" " " Reminiscences, 293. 
" " " Nomination for Office, 
299. 
Clerk in Store, 6. 
Clifton House Proposition, 435. 
Clinton Speech, 204, 206. 
Coffey, T. J., Biography, 623. 

" " " Reminiscences, 233. 
Coffin, C. C, Biography, 619. 
" " " Reminiscences, 161. 



INDEX. 



651 



Coles County, 459. 
Colfax, S., Biography, 630. 

" •' Portrait, 331. 

" " Reminiscences, 331. 

Columbus Speech, 446. 
Coming of Age, 460. 
Comparisons. {See Estimates.) 
Committee of Western Men, 56. 
" Public Safety, 33. 
Conduct of the War, 53. 
Confiscation Act, 57. 
Conger, H. S., 217. 
Congress, Lincoln in, 17, 217. 
Congressional Library, 20. 
CoNNERS, J., Biography, 644. 

" " Reminiscences, 559. 
Convention of i860, 161, 165. 
Conversation, Powers of, 588. 

" with Stevens, Campbell 

and Hunter, 80. 
" " Butler, 140. 

Cooper Union Speech, 247. 
Courtesy to Correspondents, 228. 
Counting the Electoral Vote, 1861, 31. 
Croffut, W. H., xxix. 
Curtin, Geo., xxv. 



D 



Dana, C. A., Biography, 632. 
" " " Portrait, 363. 
" «' " Reminiscences, 363. 
" " " Visit to Alexandria, 370. 



Dates. 



1S30, 5. 
1831, 119. 

1834, 6, 7. 

1835, 10. 

1836, 7. 
1833, 7, 9. 

1839, 5, 8. 

1840, 6, 7, 9, 10, 139. 
1843, 12. 

1844, 15- 

1846, 16. 

1847, 16, 17. 

1848, 18, 20, 219. 

1849, 19, 20. 

1850, 120. 

1853, 129. 

1854, 21, 129, 197. 

1855, 22, 120. 

1856, 24, 574- 

185S, 6, 24, 113, 131. 
1861,31, 47, 73, 85, 171. 

1862, 53, 57, 90, 123, 248, 271, 

1863, 42, 91, 242. 



Dates. 

1864, 51, 67, III. 
" 1865,43. 
Davis, David, 263, 468, note 200, 455. 
" Jefferson, 84. 
" " Capture of, 97, 145. 

" H. W., 494. 
Dayton, W. L., 299. 
Debates. (_Sce Speeches.) 

" with Douglas. {See Douglas.) 
" at Alton, 114. 
" " Ottawa, 6. 
Debt, Lincoln in, 465. 

" Lincoln's Father in, 458. 
Declination, Second Term to Congress, 

20. 
Defeat for U. S. Senate, 22. 
r:)cfense of U. S. Marshals, 238. 
Delegate to Convention, 1856, 574. 
Delegation from California, 50. 
Democratic Officers, 141. 
Democrats in the Army, 141. 
Depew, C. M., Biography, 636. 
" " " Portrait, 427. 
" " " Reminiscences, 427. 
Deportation of Negroes. {See Negroes.) 
Desire for Renomination, 390. 
Dispatch to Adams, Ixx., 345. 

{See Adams.) 
Dickey, J., 17, 222. 
Dismissed Officer (The), 242. 
Dollar, The First Earned, 279, 457- 
Douglas, S. A., Loyalty of, 83. 

" " " Opinion of Lincoln, 

575- 
" ' " Debates with Lincoln, 
6, 25, 26, 79, 113, 
199, 247, 297, 335, 
387, 405. 439, 440. 
Douglass, Frederick, Biography, 
620. 
" " Portrait, 185. 

" " Reminiscences, 

185. 
Draft, 71. 

" Letter Concerning, 394. 
Draper, S., 69. 
Drummond, T., 15. 
Duff, Green's Row, 17. 
Dufrees, J., 251. 
Dutch Gap Canal, 2. 
Dyce, E., 228. 



Early Home, 5. 

" Life, 5, 107, 457, 460, 468. 
" Literature, 459. 



652 



INDEX. 



Earning his First Money, 279, 457. 
Editorials in the Independent, 248. 
Education, 458, 467. 
Edwards, N., 293. 
Elected to Legislature, 6, 7. 
Election in New York, 1864, 68. 
Emancipation Proclamation, 61, 91, 
124, 126, 134, 230, 303, 
420, 494, 519. 
" Mention of Deity in, 

gi. 
" Pen Used to Sign, 230. 

Embree, E., 17, 222. 
England. {See Beecher.) 
" {See Adams.) 

Estimates of, xvii., xviii., xxii., Ixiv., 
47, 64, 77, 102, 130, 231, 
233, 247, 307, 329, 331, 347, 
365, 418,424,427,437,470, 
472, 477, 483, 499. 573. 
574, 575. 
" by James Longstreet, 77. 
Evarts, W. M., 257, 416. 
Everett, E., 228. (See also Gettysburg.) 
Exercise of the Appointing Power, 378. 
Exposure to Danger, Before the En- 
emy, 146. 
" " " in Washington, 

144- 



Fairness, 8. 
Fall of Richmond, 43. 
Fame of Dead Men, loi. 
Farm Hand, 460. 
Fenton, R. E., Biography, 615. 
" " " Portrait, 67. 

" " " Reminiscences, 67. 
" " " Serenade to, 70. 
Fesscnden, W. P., 562, 565, 568. 
Fevre River Lead Mines. (5tY Galena.) 
Ficklin, O. B., 8, 15. 

Flanders, , 93. 

Flatboatman, 460, 461. 

Fogg, G. C., 167. 

Forage Frauds, 366. 

Fortress Monroe, Command of, 145. 

Fredericksburg, Battle of, xxv. 

Fremont, Difficulty of Appointing, 55. 

Friends' Deputation, 2S1. {See also 

Quakers. ) 
Friendship for Grant, 322. 
Fry, J. B., Biography, 633. 

" " " Portrait, 387. 

" " " Reminiscences, 387. 
Fugitive Slave Law, xlvi. 



Galena, 7. 

Ganson, J., 432. 

Gayle, J., 217. 

General and Mules, 339. 

Gettysburg, Journey to, 403, 510. 

" Serenade at, 512. 

" Address, 99, 132, 228, 

403, 415, 457, 514- 
Giddings, J. R., 17, 222. 
Gift from the Romans, 138. 
Gillespie, J., 15. 
Grant, F. D., i. 
Grant, U. S., Biography, 611. 

" " " Portrait, i. 

" " " Reminiscences, i. 

" " " Lincoln's Opinion of, 

99. 175- 
Grant's Opinion of Lincoln, 580. 
Gratitude of Nations, loi. 
Greeley, H. , Lincoln's Respect for, 60. 

" " Speech (1861), 60. 

" " Criticism by, 87, 189. 

" " Peace Negotiations, 435. 

" " Portrait of Lincoln, 593. 

" " Letters to, 419, 523. 

" " Reply to, 415. 
Grocery Store Keeper, 6. 
Guarding Washington, 301. 
Gunn, L. A., 570. 

H 

Habits in Washington, 469. 
Hackett, "Baron," 265. 
Hahn, Governor, 93. 

" " Letter to, 95. 

Hale, J. P., 167. 
Hamlin, H., 484. 
Handwriting, 228. 
Hanks, Thomas, 5, 460. 
Hardin, J. J., 8, 15. 
Hendricks, T. A., 355. 
Hicks, Thomas, Biography, 646. 

" " Portrait, 593, 

" " Reminiscences, 593. 

Holding Court in 1843, 12. 
Holloway (Commissioner of Patents), 

52. 
Holt, Judge, 241. 
Home at Springfield, 168. 
Hooker, " Fighting Joe," 277. 

" Resignation, 128. 
Hostility to Lincoln in 1862, 58. 
How Lincoln earned his first Money, 
279. 457- 



INDEX. 



65. 



Illinois State Convention, i860, 208. 

" in 1849, 455- 
Impromptu Speaker, 70. 
Inauguration, 1861, 4g. 
Inaugural Address, 1861, 50, 81, 82, 
131, 224, 225. 
1865, 96, 191. 
Ball, 1865, 191. 
Indianapolis Speech, 414. 
Indiana Delegation, 53. 
Ingersoll, R. G , Biography, 628. 
" " Portrait, 307. 
" i< '< Reminiscences, 

307- 
Intoxicated Congressman, 452. 
Inventor of Torpedo, 237. 
Iverson, A., 219. 
Italians. (&v Gift.) 

J 

Judd, N. B , 35, 167. 
Julian, G. W., Biography, 614. 
" " " Reminiscences, 47. 



K 



Kansas Nebraska Bill, 203. 
Kasson, J. A., Biography, 633. 

" " " Reminiscences, 377. 
Kelley, W. B., 167. 
Kelley, W. D., Biography, 626. 

" " " Reminiscences, 255. 
Kentucky, 320. 

Kentuckians, Consultations with, 318. 
Kerr, Orpheus C, 193. 



Labor and Capital, 129, 348. 
Lane, J., 301. 

" H. S., 355- 
Laugh of Lincoln, 54. 
Law Partnership, 10. 
Law Office, 596. 
Lawyer, 7, 24, 197, 240, 294, 417, 413, 

432, 456, 460, 467, 587. 
Lee's Invasion of Pennsylvania, 490. 
Letter to Greeley, 419, 498, 523. 

" " " 1863, 448. 

" " Mrs. Bixby, ill. 

" in regard to the Draft, 394. 

" to Washburne, 18, 22, 28, 29, 
30, 42. 

" from McClellan, xxxv. 



Legislature, Election to, 6, 7. 
" Lettres de Cachet" 383. 
Lincoln and Douglas Contrasted, 444. 
" " Debates. {See 

Douglas.) 
" Grant and Sherman, 175. 
" Mrs., 195, 602. 
Tad, 597- 
Lincoln's Portrait, 591. 

Story of Own Life, 455. 
Literary Studies, 267, 599. 
Locke, D. R., Biography, 637. 
" " " Portrait, 439. 
" " " Reminiscences, 439. 
Logan, S. T., 10, 11. 
Long Nine (The), 466. 
Loss of Inaugural Address, 225. 
Luckett, H. ivL, 352. 



M 



Macon County, 5. 
Mackenzie, R. S., 229. 
MacVeagh, W., 368. 
McClellan, G. B., Appointment, 271, 
588. 

" << '< Chances for Presi- 

dency, XXX. 

" '< i< Disobedience, 53. 

" " " Letter from xxxv. 

" " " Opinion Concern- 

ing, xxxix., 99. 
McClelland, J. A., 168. 
McClernand, J. A., 8. 
McClure, A., 368. 
McCuLLOCH, H., Biography, 635. 

" " Portrait, 405. 

" " Reminiscences, 405. 

McDonough, J., 264. 
McDougall, J. A., 15. 
Mcllvaine, A. R., 17, 222. 
McPherson, E., 274. 
Mail Communications, 328. 
Maltby, Captain, 567 
Markland, A. H., Biography, 629. 
" " " Reminiscences, 

Sis- 
Marshals, U. S., Defense of, 238. 
Marshall, S. D., 8. 
Maryland, Emancipation in, 494. 
Mason and Slidell, 245. 
Meade, Opinion of, 99. 

" Appointment of, 128, 
Meade's Order, 402. 
Meddlesome Boys, 597. 
Member of Legislature, 460, 466. 
{See also Legislature.) 



654 



INDEX. 



Members of Congress from Louisiana, 

93- 
Member of Congress, i6, 460. 
Menard County, 5. 
Message to Sherman, 325. 
Messenger at White House, 364. 
Military Commander, 218. 
Military Coat Tails, 220. 
Military Life, 6, 463. 
Milroy's Arrest, 490. 
Missouri Compromise, 21, 406. 
Morgan, Governor, 257. 
Morris, W. W., 501, 509. 
Mules and Generals, 339. 



N 



Nasby, Petroleum V. {See Locke.) 
Nasby Letters, 447. 
Nebraska. {See Kansas.) 
Negroes, Deportation of, 61, 150, 151, 

153- 
" Raising troops, 145, 188, 332, 

495. 521. 
" Suffrage, 95. 
" Exchange of Soldiers, 185. 
Nelson, W., 320. 
New Orleans, 142, iig. 
New Salem, 5. 

News of the Assassination, 3S4. 
Newspaper Abuse, 58, 478, 589. 
Newspaper Controversy, 436. 
" Criticism, 241. 
" Censorship of, 226. 
" Correspondents, 228. 
New York Election in 1864, 68. 

" " Millionaires, 433. 
Nickname, "Old Abe," 16. 
Night after Election, 1S60, 479. 
Nomination for President, i860, 81, 
163, 165, 167, 168, 255, 256, 410, 

479.. 57-4. 591- 
Nomination for Senator, 25, 121. 

" of Butler for Vice-Presi- 

dent, 155. 
Nye, J. W., 257. 



O 



Office Seekers, Importunities, 336. 

Office Seeking, 481. 

" Oh, Why Should the Spirit of Mortal 

Be Proud," 213, 268, 451. 
Opdyke, G., 363. 
Otto, Appointment of Judge, 54. 



Paducah, Proclamation, 322. 

Panama Canal, 153. 

Pardoning Power, Instances of, 149, 

242, 305, 338, 340, 342,343. 35'. 

449. 489- 502, 583, 585. 
Parentage, 405. 
Patience, 392, 336 589. 

{See a/so Characteristics.) 
Peace, Attempt to preserve, 86, 317. 

'■ Commissioners, 249. 
Pennington, W., 32. 
Persistent Woman (A), 391. 
Physical Strength, 463. 
Piatt, Donn, Biography, 641. 

" " Reminiscences, 477. 

Pinkerton, A., 35. 
Place in History, 107, 137. 

( See also Estimates. ) 
Politician. 134, 430, 585. 
Pollock, J., 17, 222. 
Popularity, 14, 16. 
PooRE, B. P., Biography. 622. 
" '• " Portrait, 217. 
" '■ " Reminiscences, 217. 
Power of Statement, 194. 
Presidential Campaign of 1S60, 27. 
of 1864, 334. 
" Elector, 460. 
President, 460. 

{See also Nomination.) 
Pressure for Office, 50. 
Private Life, 64; 
Proclamation of Amnesty, 89. 
Proclamation of Emancipation. 

(See Emancipation.) 
Proclamation, Paducah, 322. 
Proposal to Purchase Abolition of 

Slavery, 98. 
Press. {See Newspapers.) 
Public Safety, Committee of, 33. 
Purple, N. H., 15. 



Quaker Preacher, The, 284. 

" Deputation, 281. 
Quota for Draft, 397. 
{See also Letters.) 

R 

Railsplitter, 208, 460, 566. 

(See also Early Life ) 
Reading Law, 7. {.See Lawyer.) 
Rebellion in General, 422. 
i Reconstruction, 421. 



INDEX. 



655 



Relative Value General and Mules, 

339- 
Releasing a Prisoner, 244. 

[See also Pardoning Power.) 
Religion, 413, 590. 
Reminiscences. 

Alley, J. B., 573. 

Andrews, E. W., 501. 

Beecher, H. W., 247. 

Boutwell, G. S., loi. 

Butler, B. F., 139. 

Clav, C. M., 293. 

Coffey, T. J., 233. 

Coffin, C. C, 161. 

Colfax, S., 331. 

Dana, C. A., 363. 

Uepew, C. M., 427. 

Douglass. F., 185. 

Fenton, R. E., 67. 

Fry, J. B.,387. 

Grant, F. D., i. 
" U. S., I. 

Hicks, Thomas, 593. 

IngersoU, R. G., 307. 

Julian, G. W., 47. 

Kasson, J. A., 377. 

Kelley, W. D., 255. 

Locke, D. R. , 439. 

Markland, A. H., 315. 

McCulloch, H., 405. 

Piatt, D., 417. 

Poore, B. P., 217. 

Swett L., 455. 

Usher, J. P., 77. 

Voorhees, D. W., 351. 

Washburne, E. B., 5. 

Weldon, L., 197. 

Welling, J. C, 519- 

Whitman, VV., 469. 
Renoniination, 1864, xxxviii., xliii., 

390- 
" Desire for, 560. 

Reported Army Losses, 2S7. 

Request of U. S. Senators, 235. 
" of a Bride, 242. 

Rhode Island, Committee from, 393. 

Rice, A. T., Ixix. 

Richardson, W. A., 8. 

Richmond, Entrance into, 17S, 180. 
Trip to, 43. 

Rivalry between New York and Penn- 
sylvania, 163. 

River and Harbor Convention, 16. 

Robinson, L., 363. 

Romans. {See Gift.) 

Ross, L. W., 8. 

Russell, Dr., 229. 



Sala, G. A., 228. 
Sawyer, " Sausage," 221. 
Schenck, R. E., 478. 490, 494. 
Scheme to Colonize Negroes, 61, 153. 

{See also Negroes.) 
Second Term. {See Renomination). 
Self-Reliance. {See Characteristics.) 
Semple, J , 8. 
Senate, Defeat for, 238. 
Senator, The Swindling, 452. 

U. S., Request of, 235 
Seward, F. W., 35. 

W. H., lii., 29S, 579. 
" " " Astor House Speech, 

85. 
" " " Enmity to Clay, 304. 
Seymour H., xxxi., xxxviii., 429. 
Sherman, Message to, 325. 
Shields, J., 15. 
Ship Island Expedition, 142. 
Slavery, xlvi., 78, 116, 129, 317, 409, 

419, 445, 583- 
" Slave Hound of Illinois," xlvi. 
Slave Dealer, The, 583. 
Slidell. {See Mason.) 
Smith, C. B., 48, 167. 
" G., 286. 
" L., 16. 
" R., 8. 
Smithsonian Institute, Meeting at, 60. 
Soldiers' Politics, 516. 

" Votes, 429. 
Soule, F., 570. 
Speech. {See also Address). 

" Gettysburg. {See Gettys- 

burg.) 
" In Congress, 220. 

" At Clinton, 204, 206. 

" " Columbus, 446. 

" " Cooper Union, 247. 

{See also Inaugural.) 
" " Freeport, 26. 

" " Indianapolis, 414. 

" " National Hotel, 471. 

" " Springfield, 121, 203. 

Speed, James, 294. 

" Joshua, 241, 294. 
Spriggs, Mrs., 17, 222. 
Springfield, Mass Meeting at, i860, 
27. 
" Home at, 168, 603. 

" Law Office at, 596. 

Squatter Sovereignty, 115. 
Stanly, E., 532. 
Stanton, H. B., liii., 243, 363. 



^^ 



656 



INDEX. 



Stanton's, H. B., Influence over Lin- 
coln, 5, 6. 
" " Refusal to Obey, 100, 

39^- 

" " " Tirade against Lin- 

coln, 223. 

" " " Tenderness, 252. 

" " " Obstinacy, 327. 
Stevens, T., Criticisms of, 339- 
Storekeeper, 462. 
Stories, Derivation of, 434. 
Story Teller. (.S<v Characteristics), 

also, 13, 54. 193. 207, 213, 21S, 

235, 372, 416, 418, 427, 442, 485. 
Story of His Own Life, 455. 
Stowe, H. B., 251. 
Strohm, J., 117, 222. 
Stuart, J. T., 7, 8, g. 
Stump Speaking in 1 840, lo. 
Suffrage, Negro, 95. 

ySt'e also Negroes.) 
Sumner, 223, 230. 
Surveyor, 460, 466. 
SwETT, L., Biography, 638. 
" Portrait, 455. 

" " Reminiscences, 455. 
Swindling Senator, The, 452. 
Sympathy, 148. 



U 



Taylor's Liaugural Ball, 19. 
Temperance, 78, 170, 19S, 463. 
Tenderness. ySee Characteristics.) 

" Liking for Theatre, 413- 

(See also Characteristics.) 
Threats against Lincoln, 276. 
Theory of the Union, 94. 
Thompson, J. , Contemplated Arrest 

of, 375- 
Todd,D. , ^(ii. 

" Mary, 293. 

" Robert, 293. 
Tompkins, P. W.. 17, 222. 
Total Abstainer, Lincoln a, 78. 
TroUope, A. , 228. 
Trumbull, L., 8. 
Tuck, A., 167. 
Tyler, D. , 488. 



Union Spy. The, 373- 
Union Square Meeting, xxxiii. 
Union, Theory of, 94. 
Usher, J. P., Biography, 616. 

" " " Portrait, 77. 

" " " Reminiscences, 77. 

V 
Van Buren and Harrison Campaign, 6. 
Vandalia, 8. 

Visit from Englishmen, 286. 
VooRHEES, D. W., Biography, 631. 

" " " Reminiscences, 351. 

W 

Wadsworth, J. S., 363. 
War. {See Conduct.) 

" (See Peace.) 
Washburne, E B., Biography, 612. 
" " " Portrait, 5. 

" " " Reminiscences, 5. 

" " " At Galena, 6. 

" " " Letters to, 18, 22, 

28, 29, 30, 42. 
Washington, Journey to, in 1861, 33, 
223. 
Arrival at, 1861, 37. 
" Mode of Life in, 469. 

Watson, P. H., 366. 
Webster, D., 222, 590. 
Weed, T., 69. 
Weldon, L., Biography, 621. 

" " Reminiscences, 197. 

Welling, J. C, Biography, 643. 

" " " Reminiscences, 519. 

Western Men, Deputation of, 5b. 
Whitman, W., Biography, 640. 
" " Portrait, 469. 

" " Reminiscences, 469. 

Wilkes, Admiral, 245. 
Williams, A., 15. 
Wilmot, D., 3f'6- 
Winston, Mrs., 502, 50S. 
Wounds Received by Lincoln, 4O2. 
Wrestler, 219. 



Yates, R. W., 600. 



/ 



t Ap 'G( 



